Annika: Part Three
by howler65
Summary: Annika has learned much about herself in the year since Sookie's disappearance, resulting in a darker worldview and an ever-present, increasing tension between herself and Eric. But with the emergence of a coven in Shreveport - as well as Sookie's return - Annika is thrust into an environment that compels her to reevaluate her guardian, as well as her own identity.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of _True Blood._**

 **PROLOGUE**

 **July 2009**

The song is by Katy Perry. I know because this time last year I liked her music, and I can still recognize her voice, though this is a new song that I've never heard. My musical tastes have since undergone a change.

The other kids, however, like Katy Perry – or, the girls do, anyway. Layla and Cassie, a pair of bottle-blonde cheerleaders in tiny shorts. They dance around the gravestones, their shadows thrashing and stretching long in the afternoon sunlight as they mouth the words, faces contorting, each desperate to out-silly the other. CJ, sitting at the base of the tree to my right, keeps tugging at his ball cap and calling out comments he thinks are either flirty or clever. Dylan, too – closer to me – has said a couple of things over the music, but just a couple. Mostly he's stayed quiet, glancing my way every few seconds to check if I'm enjoying myself. I feel him do it but never look back at him, not once. I just sip my beer and brush my fingers back and forth over the engraved granite stone beside me.

I find it fascinating, the stone. I didn't pick this piece of the cemetery as a gathering place, no, the others did, I imagine because it's a particularly secluded area – trees all around – and because they think it's funny that this grave is here. This empty, empty grave, designated for a person every one of them has seen walking and talking. Maybe a lot. He's the real man about town these days, as I understand it.

 _WILLIAM THOMAS COMPTON,_ is what the stone says. The name, and that he was a beloved husband and father, and a brave soldier, too. It's a fine – what's the word? – _epitaph_. Outdated, though. Oh, the phrases I could add, and _would_ add, given the chance. _King of Louisiana_ would _not_ make the cut, of course.

Actually, it might. It would probably annoy Eric, at least a little.

I take my hand from the stone and grab my can of beer, which I drain and toss aside before falling onto my back, tangling my fingers in the grass. I have to look past branches and leaves to see the sky. The _conflicted_ sky. It wants to be blue, but oh, it can't seem to shake a stubborn patch of grey clouds, grey clouds that twist towards the sun as if they have a plan to snuff it out once and for all.

I've had two beers since we got here, an hour or so ago. I can feel the alcohol in my blood, feel it seeping into my muscles, nudging away the fears and the desires and the _everything else_ – and there is so much, so much – of my companions, my _friends,_ nudging it all away . . . but just that, just _nudging_. I've found that having a couple of drinks is more or less the same as taking one of my pills. Well, no – the effect of alcohol doesn't last as long, and alcohol makes me even dumber than the pills do. What I mean by _more or less the same_ is that a couple of drinks and one of my pills both only kind-of help with invading emotions of other people, only protect the feeling part of me in a halfhearted way. The single pill _used_ to do more, but not lately, no . . . because I'm getting more _powerful._ I'm getting more powerful, and I'm so, so lucky for it.

Whatever. I have a few more hours until sunset. That's plenty of time to have another couple of beers before I cross the short distance to Sookie's house – excuse me, the house that _used to be_ Sookie's – where I can shower off the beer-and-cigarette smell before Dylan takes me back to Jessica and Hoyt's on the back of his four-wheeler. I hate riding the four-wheeler. It's loud, it's bumpy, and I don't trust Dylan. But you have to make do with whatever resources are at your disposal.

The song ends. I don't look, but I hear Layla and Cassie melt over each other.

"Oh my God, I love you so much," says Layla – no, Cassie.

"I love you, too. You're, like, such a dork, though, oh my God."

"I know, right? I'm the biggest dork ever, like, people don't even know . . ."

"I think you're both dorks," CJ says, because he can't stand for a conversation to go on too long without his input, especially not one between Cassie and Layla. He's a muscular, ruddy-looking guy, CJ. I'm told he plays basketball for the junior team at Bon Temps High School – "junior" meaning students in grades six through nine. Or maybe seven through nine, I don't remember. The point is, CJ's an athlete with an okay face and broad shoulders, and these qualities, it seems, are enough to make both Layla and Cassie want him. CJ only wants Cassie, though. She's prettier, more assertive, and I feel CJ's thoughtless, tingling, truly disgusting desire every time she brushes against him. But I also feel his ego expanding every time the girls are together around him, competing for his attention with their blatant methods. CJ's not a total idiot, and he likes being fought over more than he likes Cassie. At least for now.

You notice these things, when you're psychic. Or, you know. When you spend a fair amount of time with a group but barely speak while doing so.

Cassie lowers beside CJ, leaning against his arm as she scrolls through her iPod, connected by a tangled white wire to a small, portable speaker decorated with plastic eyes – _googly_ eyes, they're called. "Sorry, Annie," she says coolly, turning down the song the iPod jumped to on its own. "I know you don't like pop."

"I _do_ like pop," I tell the cheerleader, who happens to be a massive bitch. "It just has to be _good_ pop."

Dylan mimes throwing something at Cassie. "Burn."

I sigh.

"Nah, Annie's too good for this American shit," CJ says as Layla bends over beside him, reaching into our box of beer – _her_ box, technically, albeit a stolen one. She hands a can to CJ, who accepts it without a word, jerking his chin at me in the meantime. "She needs her fancy Swiss music."

"Swedish," I mutter.

"Huh?"

" _Swedish_ music. Not Swiss." It isn't worth pointing out to CJ that I've never specified my musical preferences, European or otherwise, to him or anyone here. " _Swiss_ refers to things from Switzerland. I'm from Sweden. So, _Swedish._ "

CJ cracks open his beer. "'Kay, but it's all Scand'navia, right?"

I close my eyes, regret every choice I've ever made, and roll up along my spine to stand. I turn my back on CJ, on all of them, and walk away as I dip into the pocket of my coat – my black wool coat, a thigh-brushing style Eric bought for me at the beginning of the year, when we were in Italy, before I decided I hated him. Summer in Louisiana gets far too hot for a coat like this, but I like having pockets to hide things in, so I make up for the extra layer with a remarkably slutty ensemble . . . Shorts as tiny as the cheerleaders', a midriff-baring tank top. Of course, I can't do anything to make up for the fact that this coat is too nice, _far_ too nice for this occasion – or, non-occasion.

From my pocket I draw a crushed box of cigarettes. Pall Malls, the kind CJ's dad smokes, the kind CJ steals for himself and his friends. In my case, he gives me entire boxes in exchange for the occasional bottle of very cheap liquor.

 _Yes, Eric, I stole from you and Pam. But only the cheap stuff. So, you know – no big deal._

He would kill me. For that, for other things. He would absolutely, utterly kill me.

Oh, well.

I lean against a tree a short distance from the others and light a cigarette with a lighter – the kind called _Zippo_ – I found at Sookie's. Or, whatever, _that house._ Eric's house, which used to be Sookie's. Which _would_ be Sookie's, if she weren't probably dead. Eric doesn't think she's dead, true. But I don't care what Eric thinks. So.

I'm not overly fond of the smell of cigarette smoke, but I like the vibrations it sends through my brain. I take one long drag, then another, and the smoke wraps me up like we're old friends.

I feel Dylan come up behind me, though he doesn't speak right away. "Wanna beer?" He holds it over my shoulder before I can say anything back, so I just take it. I do want one, anyway. I suppose. After my cigarette.

As Dylan inches closer, CJ calls, "Annie, I thought you liked dead people!"and Layla laughs too loud. And Dylan, my knight in shining armor, shoots back that CJ's a dumbass before leaning down to me, licking his lips. He does that too much. It's a bad habit.

"Hey, we could go for a walk, if you want." His breath is hot and full of beer. "If you'd rather. You don't seem to be havin' alotta fun here, so . . ."

I consider this. I don't think I've really done anything, or _not_ done something, Dylan could reasonably interpret as a signal that I'm not having fun. Or, rather, less fun than usual. I'm pretty sure I've been acting the same way I've acted every time I've been out with these kids since the day Dylan came up to me in the Bon Temps grocery store, maybe six weeks ago, while I was waiting for Hoyt to pay for milk. Meaning I've acted bored. Quiet. Bitter. Acted, in other words, exactly how these kids expect me to act. How they _want_ me to act. I am, after all, a freak – the girl who lives with vampires. But I'm a little, pretty freak, nonthreatening enough for my freakiness to be fascinating.

Plus, I have regular access to vast amounts of alcohol. So I'm a valuable friend to have, if you're a teenage delinquent. Or trying to be.

Dylan coughs a little. "Annie?"

I raise the cigarette to my lips. "I don't know what you're talking about, Dylan. I'm having a great time." I draw smoke into my mouth and look out at the cemetery, because it's better than looking at Dylan. It's a nice place, really, this cemetery. Monuments scatter the earth, monuments from all across the past century, some of the older ones wrapped in vines stemming from the plentiful trees. I imagine it's very peaceful here before we show up.

In the corner of my eye, Dylan pounds his fist into his palm, once, twice, thrice. Probably licking his lips all the while. Poor Dylan. He's on the basketball team with CJ but, from what I gather, isn't so highly valued by his peers. It's surprising, I guess. Dylan's tall, he has a good smile, his hair is thick and dark and well-suited for a simple, tousled look. But he doesn't know what to do with himself, Dylan. He wants to be liked, wants it so very much, but doesn't know what for. So he tries everything, jumping from funny to charming to rowdy to tough to solemn. Like a frog, from boiling pot to boiling pot.

It's pathetic.

And now, now this _pathetic_ boy is taking my free hand, which is the hand farthest from him, meaning his arm stretches across my torso in the process. He clenches my fingers as if trying to shape them into something, and his hand, oh, his hand is so _damp_. I can't get used to damp hands, human hands – at least not on other people. Mine is the only human body I've had extensive contact with in years, so I'm used to my _own_ sweaty palms, but someone else's? That's an entirely different thing.

"Hey, let's go for a walk," Dylan murmurs in a low tone I'm sure he learned from a movie. "Just you'n me. We could, like, sit and talk somewhere."

 _And I could jam my tongue into your mouth again,_ I imagine him saying. _And maybe you'll even, you know,_ like _it this time?_

And who knows? Maybe I would.

But I doubt it.

I twist my hand free, open my mouth to brush him off, and . . . that's when a beat starts up behind me, a beat I know well. I turn my ear towards the speaker to make sure I'm hearing correctly, then murmur, "That's more like it," as Layla tells Cassie this song is like, a _million_ years old, and Cassie says she knows, _right?_ , but it's still good, swear to God . . .

"Oh, yeah." Dylan nods. "Yeah, this song's great . . ." His eyes creep downwards, then, because I've started swaying with the music, and I guess he likes how that looks. My twelfth year has given my body a bit of curve – made my hips wider than my waist, at least, made my chest merit an A-cup bra. But that's not a lot, I know. And my coat is currently hiding most of me anyway. But I guess the tank top and shorts show Dylan enough, because he keeps watching me move. And me, I let him watch, let him get whatever he gets from whatever he sees, while the song sweeps through the graveyard and Michael Jackson starts to sing.

" _ **As he came into the window/Was a sound of a crescendo . . ."**_

And that voice, so familiar to me these days, reaches into my mind and opens a box and releases a second voice, this one familiar, too – more familiar than it should be, really, since Jack and I only spoke a few times. But his words spring easily from my memory, quick and quiet and almost (ironically) alive in their own right, and I close my eyes and sway and sway and listen.

 _Michael Jackson – you ever listen to Michael Jackson? Put him on the list. As a matter of fact, put him at the top. For cultural relevance alone, he should be at the top._

" _ **He came into her apartment/He left the bloodstains on the carpet . . ."**_

 _Goddamn, that bastard could put on a show. The kind of show that just . . . took you. Made you something else for a while, whatever he wanted you to be. And you didn't care, you didn't even notice, because_ you _didn't exist anymore, not so long as he was on the stage. Now that, darlin',_ _is_ _a fucking artist._

" _ **She ran underneath the table/He could see she was unable . . ."**_

CJ says something, _Oh, shit_ , maybe, and God, I wish he would shut up for once.

" _ **So she ran into the bedroom/She was struck down, it was her doom . . ."**_

Dylan grabs my arm, and I tense and open my eyes and start to yank myself away – but then his emotion rolls over me, shortly followed by the emotions of Cassie and Layla and CJ, but it's all one emotion, really, one mutual reaction: _Panic_ , all-consuming, thought-scattering panic, and the moment unfolds so fast that I can't say _why_ I end up looking to my left – if Dylan was doing so and I followed suit, if I sensed the threat myself, if I just moved and it happened to be in that direction – but I _do_ end up looking to my left, and I see two men coming towards us, clad in identical khaki uniforms, badges on their chests and scowls on their faces.

It's worth noting that I recognize one of these men.

I've just dropped the cigarette when CJ yells, "Fuck – _Run!"_ and here's the thing: I'm smarter than CJ, smarter than all of these kids, _significantly_ so, and I should know better than they do. And yet – and _yet_ – as the men approach and Dylan yanks my elbow, my body reacts. I have no other explanation, nothing like an excuse. My body just _reacts_.

Which is how I end up being chased through a Bon Temps cemetery by Jason Stackhouse as Michael Jackson provides the background music. The song – "Smooth Criminal," for the record – reaches me and plucks strings in my brain even as I flee the scene, flee from the stone with the name of a monarch and the stolen box of beer and the googly-eyed speaker from which the song blares, flee from a couple of backwoods cops, flee from the threat of Eric's wrath as I've never seen it before, never felt it before, I just flee, flee, _flee_.

As if it could possibly be enough.

" _ **Annie, are you okay? So, Annie are you okay?**_

 _ **Are you okay, Annie?**_

 _ **Annie, are you okay? So, Annie are you okay?**_

 _ **Are you okay, Annie?"**_


	2. The New World

**Present Day**

It's quiet in Eric's office. I sit on the end of his couch closest to the door, my legs folded like I'm a meditating monk, because the cushions in this thing are so stuffed that my feet won't touch the ground if I let them hang off normally. I'd have to literally sit on the edge of my seat. I don't want to do that, it makes me look tense. So. Folded legs.

Dr. Mallory sits in one of the wooden chairs that are supposed to face Eric's desk. At the start of the session, he dragged the chair to the center of the room and turned it towards my place on the couch, just like he did the first two times he came here. Now he waits and stares at me. Dr. Mallory might be somewhere in his thirties, but I'm not good at guessing ages. He wears thick, square glasses, and he's Asian, at least partly, though his name doesn't suggest it and I can't begin to guess which part of Asia he or his family might be from. He has a clipboard in his lap and a pen in his hand, ready if I say something major.

We're three sessions in. He should know better by now.

Dr. Mallory is fond of the same tactic Dr. Bishop often used (Bishop was the first therapist – Mallory is the third one I've had since June), which is saying nothing when I say nothing in hopes that I'll get tired of saying nothing and speak. I think this has to do with silence sometimes making people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, for Bishop then and Mallory now, I'm far more comfortable being silent in therapy than I am with talking. This is largely due to the fact that I neither want nor need therapy and am, in fact, here against my will; also, however, having someone sit still in front of you for extended periods of time – saying nothing, doing nothing to distract you – provides a marvelous opportunity to practice some things. At least if you're psychic.

I eye the wrinkles in Mallory's forehead. Joanie – someone I spent time with in France, months ago – told me she usually starts with wrinkles when she's trying to read someone without touching them. Reading like that, you have to focus on the personal pieces of a person, the physical personal pieces that speak to the life the person lives. Wrinkles, tattoos, scars, jewelry, sometimes even clothing, if it looks well-lived in. All of these things, of course, come after the eyes. The eyes are tricky, though. Trying to get information from a person's eyes usually just gives you what they're feeling – or thinking, if you're telepathic, which I've yet to be – at that moment. The more experienced empaths, like Joanie, can move past that and find out more, but I'm still far from being able to do that.

Probably.

The wrinkles in Mallory's forehead bunch together and smooth out just as I'm discovering exactly how tired he is today – which is very – and my concentration breaks. That was Mallory popping his eyebrows. And now he sighs. Damn it. He's about to start talking.

"Okay . . ."

Knew it.

The doctor's voice is too bright as he flips through the (mostly blank) papers pinned to his clipboard. Poor papers. They're hostages, like me. "During our last session, you touched on something I thought was interesting." He stops on a page, scans it. "You said you were four when you found out Eric was a vampire. I'd like for us to spend some time talking about that today."

Are glasses something I can read from? Joanie never said, and I've never tried, but surely something a person wears every day for the sake of seeing things clearly is a pretty personal object. I study the frames resting on Mallory's oily nose, extending myself to them – mentally, I mean – in that certain way Joanie couldn't quite describe to me and I can't quite describe to anyone else. You just have to do it, have to feel for yourself that piece of your mind stretching forward, into the world, at your command.

It's a good feeling, I can say that much.

"Could you tell me about that, Annika?"

A feeling that requires _concentration_ to maintain.

"Sorry?" I don't look away from Mallory's glasses, and maybe, _maybe_ I feel my eyes itch a bit. You can talk while you read someone, it's just more difficult, and I haven't had a lot of practice doing it. Really, then, Mallory forcing conversation is good, but . . . annoying.

"Could you tell me about how you found out Eric was a vampire? Or at least something different from you?"

"Oh. Not really. I barely remember it."

"What do you remember?"

 _A hotel suite . . . a pretty nanny who smiled a lot, a stranger who wouldn't look at me at all, and Eric, Eric pushing his way into the room, looking like a lion someone forgot to feed . . . and . . ._

. . . and all of my mind has completely snapped back into my head. Mallory's glasses are back to a mere, blank accessory. I pull my lower lip into my mouth and bite.

"Nothing," I say, perhaps stiffly. "I don't remember anything."

"A second ago you said you _barely_ remembered it."

"Yes."

"That's different from not remembering anything."

My hands have that twitchy feeling that means they want to wring, but that looks as bad as being on the edge of my seat, so I just grip my kneecaps and scan Mallory for other things I could get a reading from. "I don't wanna talk about it."

"You don't seem to want to talk about most of the things that come up when we talk, Annika. Why do you think that is?"

"Probably because I don't want to be here." Mallory's wearing a long-sleeved button-down – or button-up, I'm not sure what the difference is – so if he has a tattoo, it's hidden. The same with any noticeable scar. But maybe his hands –

Mallory opens his arms, disrupting my search. "But you are here."

He explains this no further. Unless you count giving me a wise sort of look that tells me I really should be finding this statement profound. "I'm not sure what you mean by that," I say, I think politely, and the doctor's arms fall.

"Exactly what it sounds like I mean. You _are_ here, whether or not you want to be –"

"And I don't," I mutter.

"– so why not at least _try_ to reap the benefits of therapy? Especially when, with very few exceptions, whatever comes up in our sessions is confidential?"

Here's the most annoying part of what he just said: Mallory – like Bishop and the second therapist, who was a counselor but not a doctor and told me to call him _Kevin_ – was chosen by Eric from a list, provided by Dr. Ludwig, of therapists in or around the Shreveport area who have experience with the supernatural. Aside from Eric deciding (reluctantly, I've always assumed) that I should be able to talk about my psychic abilities in therapy, he also wanted someone who was tolerant of and knowledgeable about vampires, because – even though he can, and I have no doubt _has_ , glamoured these people into repeating nothing I say to outsiders – he thought a typical human therapist might be distracted or put off by certain elements of my life.

Imagine that.

My point is, Mallory should know damn well why I won't try to _reap the benefits of therapy_ , because Mallory should know damn well that nothing between us is _confidential,_ because Mallory should know damn _fucking_ wellthat most vampires hate not having control and are very unlikely to feel bad about glamouring someone for information that _gives_ them control, no matter what confidentiality rules the someone being glamoured has said he'll follow, even _wants_ to follow. Most vampires just don't care.

Eric, I'm quite certain, cares even less than most.

No matter what he's told me to the contrary.

Something catches the light, and my eye, when Mallory interlaces his fingers. Ah. His wedding ring. I should have considered that sooner, but I tend not to think about wedding rings – they're very human. I narrow my eyes at the thing, gold and simple and pretty. Mallory told me during our first session that he and his wife have been married twelve years, which is a lot of time for that ring to pick things up.

"Annika, are you listening to me?"

"Of course, Doctor."

"I would like for you to talk about what happened when you were four. Finding out what Eric was. If only as an exercise."

That special piece of my mind finds the ring, touches on it with a sensation – can I use that word, though? – touches on it in a way that reminds me of nail polish flooding over a nail when you had too much of it on the brush. Oh, yes. This ring has picked up a lot. "May I ask, Dr. Mallory, what you hope to learn from that story?" I say to say something.

"As I said, it may only serve as an exercise, something to make you more comfortable with me. We could, however, discover that this event had more of an impact on you than you realize. Few studies have been conducted on vampires and children, but from what we do know . . ."

He goes on like that for a minute. I nod a couple of times, but my attention is on the ring, the ring, this, oh, _magnificent_ jackpot of a ring that I should have read before anything else, that I should have read the moment I met Mallory.

I'll be getting out of this session early, I think.

"So," the doctor says in a concluding way, "Did Eric tell you he was different from most people, or did you find out some other way?"

"Excuse me, Doctor, but – what was that you said about my being comfortable with you?"

"Um – only that I want you to be. You should feel safe enough to view me as a confidante."

"May I ask you questions about yourself, then?" I say this to the ring. It's still sending me things, like flashes from a lighthouse. "To get to know you better?"

A brief pause, then, "Certainly. Within reason."

"Thank you. Does your wife know you like men?"

Mallory's fingers go rigid.

" _Lots_ of men." I don't _see_ these men, thankfully, but I sense them, the sort-of ghosts of their presence. And I feel the guilt and darkness of the nights Mallory's spent with them. Some of those nights are fresh, they happened recently, and . . .

"Oh. She doesn't know, does she?" I break from the ring, come back to myself like a shirt being folded, and tilt my head at Dr. Mallory. He's gone pale. His oily nose is even oilier, his whole face looks oily now, and his eyes – the windows to the soul, remember – shoot me with an iron bolt of anger, dread, and oh, shame. So much shame.

I'm used to feeling sudden rushes of other people's emotions, though, so I don't even flinch. And I push back on his feelings, nudge them to the very edges of my mind like Joanie taught me. I smile my sweetest smile. "Don't worry, Doctor. Whatever comes up in our sessions is confidential."

. . . . .

As I predicted, Dr. Mallory ends the session early.

I decide to make coffee. I could use the energy. Reading the ring drained me a bit, so I think I may have pushed myself more than I should. Also, though, I can always go for coffee.

My coffee station is in the storage room. It consists of a French press, an electric grinder, an electric kettle (that's also for tea, technically), and four bags of beans (though the number of bags varies), all on a stainless-steel table that just manages to squeeze into the space between the refrigerator and the shelves. The appliances were one of Eric's _I'm sorry I'm making you come back to Louisiana_ gifts. The others were a turntable and season tickets to Shreveport's (surprisingly impressive) repertory theatre. Oh, and a budget to redecorate my room, which I used to more-or-less whitewash the place, as I'd grown rather accustomed to spacious (and windowed) rooms during the time Eric and I spent in Europe and multiple interior design websites promised me that white walls and furniture would create the illusion of space. And they did, to an extent. But redecorating could only do so much. All the gifts could only do so much. Not just because I missed Europe, barely because of that. There were . . . other things.

I pour bottled water into the kettle and scoop some beans – a Lavazza dark roast – into the grinder, where they turn to dust, a process I find satisfying to witness. Once the grounds and the hot water are doing their work in the French press and I'm leaning against the wall, watching the liquid darken, it occurs to me that it's probably after ten by now. Close, anyway. Eric doesn't want me drinking coffee after ten.

But Eric isn't here.

Eric has gone to see Sookie Stackhouse.

Who isn't dead.

I swallow. The grounds swirl through the water.

When the coffee is made, I carry a warm, steaming mug into the hall. But, because _Eric isn't here_ , I don't go straight to my room. For once, something I'm mildly interested in, _and_ actually allowed to witness, is happening at the club. So, instead of passing by the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, I push through it, entering the bar. Immediately, I catch a scowl from the nearest person – there are maybe ten strangers here – a woman with a headset and a long pole that has a microphone on the end. I gaze back at her, sipping my coffee, and after a second she shifts her feet and looks away.

The people are clumped together in front of Pam – well, I guess Pam is in front of them, really. She's on a barstool, clad in a pink, lovely-but-professional (normal-human-job professional) dress, hair styled into wide curls. She looks beautiful. And like she'd rather have a stake in her chest than be doing what she's doing.

"Yes, of _course_ Fangtasia is for everyone," she's says into a camera, a big, meant-for-real-television camera. There's a man standing beside it, and I think he must be at least somewhat in charge, because he's the only one here in a suit and tie. His expression is grim.

To the left of that man, though, is the reason I say he's _at least somewhat_ in charge. To the left of that man, sitting in what seems to be an actual director's chair, wearing a headset of her own, is Nan Flanagan. She watches Pam with a look as sharp as all her other features. This, keep in mind, is the same Nan Flanagan who one year ago sat in this very room with different, smaller cameras, interrogating Eric for the Authority's benefit. The same Nan Flanagan who was more than ready to execute my guardian for a murder he didn't commit.

But now? Now, she is an ally. Because that's just how things work in the world of vampires. Or in the world of politics. I'm not sure, maybe both.

Pam's listing things now. I climb onto a stool at the end of the bar.

"Vampires. Humans. Men. Women. Families. Pets." Each word rolls from her tongue like a heavy log. Families? As in, children? _I'm_ not even allowed on the floor during club hours. I never have been, not even when things were good for me here – well, _better_ for me here. _Slightly_ _less shitty_ for me here. Oh, and there's certainly a _No Pets_ policy. At least for rabbits.

But none of this is about being real, I know that, I'm not stupid. This, this is about publicity, _good_ publicity. Vampires need as much of that as they can get these days. Thanks to a certain madman king from Mississippi.

Who isn't dead.

"Everyone is welcome," Pam drones – yes, that's the perfect word for it, _drones_. "Come on down. The blood is warm, and so is the service."

Her voice is so very cold when she says this that, for the first time tonight, I smile in a good way, a truly good way. Slightly. Into my coffee.

The suit-and-tied man puts one hand on his hip, rests the other on the camera, almost as if he's trying to comfort it. Then, in an overly-patient tone much like the one my new math tutor uses to guide me through an equation, he says, "And . . . do human families have anything to _fear_ with vampire-owned businesses in their community?"

"No."

The room waits for Pam to elaborate. She doesn't.

Nan Flanagan slouches forward, jerkily, as if someone short tugged a string tied to her chin. She raises her shoulders in a _What, that's it?_ motion, palms flipped towards the ceiling, and seeing Nan Flanagan like that – unhappy, I mean, even just a little – makes me smile-in-a-good-way a bit more.

But then I hear the EMPLOYEES ONLY door open behind me. And my smile vanishes. Just that quickly, like it's fallen through a trapdoor.

I didn't expect him back so soon. I didn't expect him back until nearly dawn, actually, and maybe not even then – he's had an underground bedroom installed at Sookie's, just like the one he has on Öland, so why wouldn't he spend the day in Bon Temps? After dedicating so much time in the past year to finding Sookie, to preparing for the return he always believed she'd make?

 _Maybe Sookie didn't want to see him._

 _Would he care?_

I wrap my hands around my mug, lifting my chin as the suit-and-tied man tries to get Pam to say more. I keep my head turned towards them, turned from the door, even as I hear footsteps nearing from that side of me. Even as I feel or hear or somehow otherwise _sense_ someone leaning over the bar beside me.

"How's she doing?" Eric murmurs as Pam reiterates that, no, humans have nothing to fear from vampire-owned businesses. I think she does this using the exact words the suit-and-tied man just used, but I'm not certain. I'm distracted now.

"Badly," I reply. Civilly. "She thinks it's stupid."

"Mm. And charm isn't exactly her strong suit, is it?"

I don't react. I certainly don't look at him. I _hate_ it when he does that, tries to make a joke like that, when he knows, he _knows_ we don't do that anymore. "Did you see Sookie?" I mutter, because that's all we need to talk about.

"Briefly, yes."

"Why briefly?" And I can't help it. "Where was she? Is she okay?"

Oh, I don't mean for those questions to come out like they do – meaning hungry, hungry for information from _Eric_. But they burst out. Because I _am_ hungry for information. And Eric happens to be the one who has it.

"She seemed well." He's still whispering, but he sounds happy, in a low-key Eric way. "I didn't get a chance to question her, however. We were . . . interrupted. But I'll go to her again tomorrow, once she has had time to –"

"Stop!" Nan Flanagan orders, interrupting Eric, as well as Pam. "Cut," she orders the suit-and-tied man, or maybe the camera people, before aiming a single, sticklike finger my way. But, obviously, it isn'treally myway. _"That_ isthe man we want."

"What?" Eric says in a too-pleasant voice, a nearly _sweet_ voice that hides a joke for just him and Pam. And, fine, for me. "Pam not so good?"

Flanagan yanks her headset to her neck. "She was fine. If you happen to be blind and deaf and an _idiot_."

"What's idiotic," Pam says, a touch too calmly, "is that the AVL believes the public to be so naïve."

As she speaks, Eric pushes off the bar, which lets me relax a little. My hands loosen from my mug, anyway. They were sort of strangling it.

Flanagan says to Pam, "I have proof. Scientific. People are far dumber than they realize . . ." And, to the room: "It's a post-Russell Edgington world, everyone! And we win back the public one smile at a time."

Flanagan replaces her headset, and Eric walks to Pam. No, _strolls_ , he _strolls_ to Pam, because strollingis what you do when you're in total control of the room and the situation and you know it. And Eric _always_ knows that, because it's always that way for him. Virtually.

I slide from my seat, taking my mug with me.

Eric flips some of Pam's hair over her shoulder so he can pluck a tiny black thing from her dress. A microphone, I think. He snaps it onto his jacket and waves away his progeny, who goes without protest. Almost eagerly, actually.

I go, too. Less eagerly, maybe, but without hesitation.

"Action," I hear Eric say as I near the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. His voice grows then, spreads out through the room, takes it over in a warm way, an inviting way, a way that means he's playing the businessman. Charming the world. As he is so very good at.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Eric Northman. I'm a taxpaying American and small-business owner in the great state of Louisiana. I also happen to be a vampire."

 _And one time, around thirteen years ago, I purchased an unborn baby girl so I could use her psychic abilities for my own purposes, and now I keep her in a windowless room in the back of my vampire bar._

I kick open the EMPLOYEES ONLY door, causing a much-too-loud _thunk_. I feel eyes on my back. But Eric, Eric continues, Eric doesn't miss a beat, dismissing _inflammatory talk_ _about vampires_ as casually as he would dismiss anything he doesn't really care about all that much.


	3. Break

Maybe an hour later, as my turntable spins Queen's _Sheer Heart Attack_ from my dresser and my laptop plays a yoga DVD from my draped-in-white bed, I move from Downward-Facing Dog to Crescent Lunge and discover Eric standing in front of me.

I lose my balance – it's knocked out of me, really. I have to bring my left hand down to the ground, fast, to keep from falling, and I grit my teeth.

"I knocked," Eric calls over Freddie Mercury and the (barely-heard to begin with) yoga instructor.

I reset myself and stretch my hands up, settling into the lunge, eyes on the ceiling. "Sorry."

Eric walks past me. To my dresser, I'm guessing. The turntable . . . and sure enough, the room is suddenly all too quiet.

"Odd choice of music for yoga, isn't it?" Eric says as the yoga instructor – Shelly-something, I think – cheerfully tells me to move into Warrior One. "I'd think you'd want something more calming."

"Queen does calm me." I can't help but think about the awful poetic nature of Eric stopping a record Jack told me to get, though I don't like to think about Jack at all when Eric's around. I'm not sure if Jack would like or hate that I feel that way. But, of course, I don't know Jack all that well, do I?

 _You probably know him as well you know Eric._

Okay, that's an exaggeration, but not by much.

Eric returns to the head of my mat as Shelly says to reach up and lift from my heart – _as if to give the sky a gentle boost_ – and I see that he took off his shoes, at least, like I got back into the habit of doing during our time on Öland, like I became especially careful about when I got the white shag carpet now covering most of my dull concrete floor. So that's something from Eric, something considerate . . . a _little_ something. One of the little somethings he does for me sometimes because they require almost no effort on his part and he thinks I'll be better for him if I'm happy.

"Ms. Flanagan and the camera crew have left," he says.

I already knew that. The crew was made up of humans, so I felt them go, and I had no reason to think Flanagan would hang around. Eric _knows_ that I already knew that, though, or he should, at least. "Alright." I shift into Warrior Two, one arm reaching behind me and one reaching for Eric's stomach.

"Would you take a break for a moment, please?"

I bend deeper into my lunge. "Dr. Ludwig said she wanted me to exercise more." Back to Downward-Facing Dog now. I fold over and push my hips high, let my head dangle. I like this feeling, being upside down, my head filling and filling with blood.

I hear a faint _click_. Shelly's voice vanishes halfway through directing me to Plank.

My fingers press too hard into the mat, and I move to Plank anyway. I lower myself and curl into Upward-Facing Dog . . . I've done this DVD twenty times, I know the routine, I don't even know why I bother playing it anymore. Habit, I suppose.

Arced back like this, I'm pretty much forced to look at Eric. His lips, I think, are closed a little too tight. I pop my eyebrows. "Do you want me to get fat?"

"Dr. Ludwig did not recommend more exercise because she feared you would get fat. If anything, you're too small. I still fight the urge to grab you anytime there's a particularly strong breeze."

It's been months since Eric and I were together anywhere there might have been a breeze of any kind. That would have been the last time he took me to a diner, I think. I only ordered coffee, and something about that irritated him, and we argued. At the table, in the car on the way back to the club. I think he accused me of being sullen, so, yeah, I argued, because that was when I still did that. Before I realized that arguing never seemed to do much good and that being silent, apart from taking less energy, actually bothered Eric _more_.

He offers me his hand. I flip back to Downward-Facing Dog, quickly, so maybe it looks like I didn't notice him move. I bring my left foot between my hands, my right foot between my hands, and roll slowly to a stand, and once I'm there, I crack my neck and cross my arms and gaze up at my dear guardian. "Is there something you forgot to tell me about Sookie?" I ask in the politest of voices.

"No," Eric says in the most patient of voices, "I told you everything. As I said, we only met for a moment."

Were this conversation between our old selves, I probably would have asked Eric about his plans concerning Sookie. Maybe make sure he was sure she looked okay, sure she didn't say _anything_ about where she's been for a year, where she's been where _I couldn't feel her,_ where Bill and Eric couldn't feel her. I might have asked if Eric would take me with him when he goes back to Bon Temps tomorrow, so I can see Sookie, who I liked. Who I mourned.

But we're not our old selves. So I don't ask anything.

I can't bring myself to.

Eric slides his hands into his pockets, head hanging a little. "I just received a voicemail from Dr. Mallory. He says he doesn't feel he's a good fit for you and recommends I find someone else. Do you have any idea why he might feel like this?"

A sense of triumph – stained with spots of guilt, but just _tiny_ spots – flows through me, but I'm careful to keep my face blank. "I guess he didn't think we were connecting."

"You don't seem surprised."

"He didn't seem to like me very much."

"And you always being so pleasant."

I say nothing.

Eric looks away, just for a moment, then we're staring at each other again. _Glaring_ , is the more fitting word. "It doesn't matter if he likes you or not. He's a doctor. He's paid to help people, regardless of what he thinks of them personally."

 _Well, actually,_ you _pay him to find out what I'm thinking. Because you can't do it yourself._

I shrug. "Maybe he realized I don't need any help."

"I find that unlikely."

"Because I'm destined for insanity?"

Eric's face doesn't so much as twitch, but his voice lowers, just slightly. "We're not going through that again."

That's fine. I don't really want to. I only said that because I know Eric's annoyed by the topic . . . or, something.

I don't know why I said it.

I uncross my arms, even though doing so goes against my instincts. I clasp my hands behind my back and tilt my head, bat my eyelashes the way I might have as an adoring little girl, a stupid little girl who didn't know enough of anything. And Eric, Eric clenches his jaw. Because we both know I'm not that little girl anymore.

"Annika," he says, "The first two therapists I dismissed at your request, because you'd met with each for several weeks with no discernible progress, and it is normal, in therapy, to try different people. But this one you barely gave a chance. And even if you didn't like him, I think you can agree that running him off – as opposed to coming to me with your concerns – was not an especially mature way to handle the situation."

Had I come to him with my _concerns,_ he would have told me to give it a few more weeks. Just like he did with Dr. Bishop and _Kevin_. But there's no point in telling Eric this, so I just blink some more.

Eric takes a deep breath, as he's taken to doing more and more during our conversations. "I'm calling someone new tomorrow. It's very unlikely you'll persuade me to let him or her go anytime soon, so I suggest you start making an effort to get something out of these sessions. Or, I suppose, you could figure out how to drive this one away, too, and all the ones that come after. But you should know that if we reach that point I will simply return to the top of the list and start glamouring you out of these peoples' memories so they will meet with you again, because, Annika, as I've told you, you are going to stay in therapy until I'm convinced you've at least _attempted_ to gain from it."

 _But you don't care if I gain from it!_ I want so badly to shout. _It's only about what_ you _gain from it! What you can find out about me that lets you control me_ that much more!

Behind my back, I'm gripping one wrist so tightly that the fingers on that hand have begun to tingle. But my face gives nothing away. Or, I try to make it give nothing away.

Eric turns and walks to the door. Strolls, actually. Of course he strolls. As he slips his shoes on again, he says, quite easily, "Also, if you keep drinking coffee after ten, I'll forbid you from using your French press anywhere but in my office." He steps into the hallway. "Enjoy your yoga."

He closes the door, very softly. My room has never been so silent.


	4. That Bad

**July**

Jason Stackhouse looks like he would rather be anywhere else. Odd, maybe, since we're in his childhood home, him swinging his arms in the kitchen's archway, me at the same old wooden table I sat at the first night I saw a werewolf. Well, saw a werewolf and knew it was a werewolf, anyway. That was before Sookie went missing. Before Russell Edgington set the vampire mainstreaming movement back to maybe its beginning. Before I learned things Eric never wanted me to know.

"Be dark soon." Jason keeps slapping his fist into his hand. He tosses his arms back, brings them forward, and slaps his fist into his hand. It's a strange motion.

I blink back at him, not saying thank you, not saying I know, not pointing out that I can see a total of three windows from where I'm currently sitting and therefore am quite aware of the impending sunset. No, none of that. Better to just blink. Less dangerous. Takes less energy, too.

Jason, at my silence, licks his lips and raises up on his calves, drops down again. Swings his arms back, swings them forward. Slaps his fist into his hand. He hasn't stopped moving since he brought me here from the cemetery, after the other cop loaded Dylan, CJ, Layla, and Cassie – who was crying like a child – into his car to deliver them to their parents. That other cop first gave us all a lecture, of course, to ensure we understood we could be arrested for underage drinking, and would be, if it happened again. The whole thing was almost laughable. Him thinking that would scare me, I mean. Given what I was going to have to face on my own. What I _am_ going to have to face on my own.

Jason glances out the closest window, the one over the sink, like maybe he hopes Eric has decided not to worry about sunlight this evening and will arrive earlier than expected. Although we don't know exactly what time he'll show up. Jason had to leave a voicemail, since he called while it was still light out. I gave him the club's number, because Eric's careful about who can call his personal phone.

And because Pam might hear the message before Eric does, in which case she'll tell him what's happened, and maybe she'll do so in a way that won't infuriate him quite so much as if he heard it via Jason on the answering machine.

 _It'll still infuriate him enough._

He's going to kill me.

The beer buzz has long worn off. I miss it. And I want a cigarette.

"Hey – you want somethin' to drink?" Jason asks, lighting up. You'd think his suggestion was a novel idea, one with the potential to save mankind. But there – the light's dimming. "Oh. Guess you should be askin' me that, huh?"

I tilt my head.

"I mean, uh, you shouldn't be askin' me anything. Or, you don't have to. I just meant, you know, 'cause it's polite, to ask people if . . . Not that – not that you're bein' impolite –"

"Would you like something to drink, Officer Stackhouse?" I ask, as if I've spent a single night in this house, which Jason's family owned for generations. As if he and I aren't surrounded by furniture and appliances and _stuff_ purchased or otherwise obtained by his sister or grandmother or maybe relatives even older.

Jason lets out a long sigh. A lock of blonde hair falls over his forehead. "No. Thank you." He studies me for a second before looking out the window again, arms swinging. I can feel his emotions, but truly, I think anyone could see Jason right now and know how he's feeling. I think he's an open book for anyone, not just someone like me.

And maybe I'm still buzzing from the beer after all. Or maybe most things don't seem to matter in this moment. Maybe something else. Whatever the reason, I say, "You can relax. Really. Eric isn't going to be angry with you. Just me."

Jason starts to speak, but he takes his time, like he can't get the word to form quite right. "Well," he finally says, and that's it.

I study him, the brother of the missing part-fairy telepath – and he's part-fairy himself, I suppose – fidgeting in his sister's kitchen (and it _is_ her kitchen, I don't care what papers Eric has signed). I knew he'd become a cop, because I stay at Jessica and Hoyt's sometimes and Hoyt is Jason's best friend, but this is the first time I'm seeing Jason in uniform. It suits him better than I would have guessed, from our brief interactions and the things I've heard about him. "Would you like to sit down?" I nod to the chair across the table.

"Oh. No, thanks, I'm good."

"Please sit down, Officer," I say. Possibly just to see if I can get him to. Manipulating people can be a good pastime, as well as a useful skill. These are the sorts of things I've learned in my childhood. "You're moving so much, it's making me nervous."

So Jason, after a second's hesitation, pulls out the chair across from me and lowers slowly into it, as if trying not to spook a wild animal. I look at him. He looks down at the table, up at me, at the table, at me.

"Seriously," I say. "You have nothing to worry about. Even if Eric _did_ blame you, he'd never hurt Sookie's brother."

Jason's eyes fall to the table again, and I feel his anxiety make way for something heavier, something that almost makes me cringe. Grief.

"I'm sorry," I say without thinking. "I didn't mean to . . . I shouldn't have brought her up."

"Nah, it's okay." Jason picks at a scrape on the table. "I was already kinda thinkin' about her. It's hard to be here without . . ." His voice fades, and he sighs again.

For the first time, I think about how Jason must have felt, selling Sookie's house. And there's really not much to think about that, is there? How many ways can you feel about selling the home of your loved and missing sister, the home which happens to have been in your family for decades, maybe more than a century?

"You know what Eric's got planned for this place?" Jason asks. He's suddenly not so twitchy, which is a relief, I guess, even if that's just because his sadness has weighed down his nerves. "I never actually met with him, when I sold it. Just talked to some people on the phone."

I brush my fingers across the beaten table's surface, over scratches and dents and other marks that are really memories. "Eric doesn't tell me things."

"Oh," Jason says. "And you can't . . . You know . . ." He points the two middle fingers of one hand at his temple and moves his hand towards me and back.

I'd forgotten he knows about my abilities. Which is a stupid, dangerous thing for me to do. Though not as stupid and dangerous as letting him know about it in the first place – which, actually, if I remember correctly, was Sookie's doing. So I can't really be all that mad about it, can I? "I don't read Eric."

"'Cause he's a vampire?"

"Because he's Eric."

"What's that mean?"

"He values his privacy." _Also, he's ridiculously old and powerful and therefore impossible to read ninety percent of the time._ No need to mention that.

"Yeah, well . . ." Jason shrugs, half-grins. "Most people do, right?"

"Most people won't tear out your heart over it."

The half-grin slides from Jason's face. We sit quietly. Through the windows I see that the world is almost all black. I close my eyes. If Eric drives here, I have around an hour. If he flies here, I have minutes.

"What's he, uh . . ."

I open my eyes to see Jason's folded his hands on the table. He's twiddling his thumbs, literally. I don't think I've ever seen someone actually do that. "What's he gonna do to you?" He asks. I think he tries to make it sound casual, but his eyebrows twitched down in a way that sort of ruined that for him.

Also, I can sense his concern.

It gets tiring, sensing things.

"I don't know," I say. Truthfully.

"I mean, he can't get that mad at you, right? Just for drinkin' with some other kids? Hell, every kid does that, sooner or later. Uh – _Heck_. Sorry."

"I'm not every kid." I'm the kid in the illegal custody of Eric Northman. The kid he paid a lot for, the kid he expects certain things from. Certain behavior. "And it's not just about drinking with some other kids. It's about . . ." _Going somewhere without his permission. Going somewhere without his permission_ in the daytime. _Doing so on multiple occasions. Lying about it in each case. Getting caught by humans, human_ cops. _Stealing liquor from his bar._ "Yes, he can get that mad at me."

More sitting quietly, and then: "You know, if . . . if he's hurtin' you, there're things we can do about it. I mean, I'm the Law. I can talk to Sheriff Bellefleur –"

"No, you – Listen to me, Jason." I lean over the table, vaguely aware that I didn't use his title and caring even less than I might have normally, because my being formal with Jason is part of a game, and this is not. He just made it not. "Do not talk to anyone about this. About me and Eric. You can't fuck with him like that, he won't stand for it."

"Hey, now, no need for that kinda language –"

"Jason, he will hurt you. He will _fucking_ hurt you."

Jason has straightened, hands in his lap now. He pulled them back when I was talking, the way you'd stop petting a dog if it growled. "I thought you said he wouldn't hurt me. 'Cause of Sookie."

I swallow. Rest again against the back of my chair. "If you make enough trouble for him, he will." I let my hands come together to wring. "Believe me, he will."

I shouldn't say that. It sounds suspicious. But I say it anyway, because . . . just because.

"Eric doesn't hurt me," I say, not lying, really, because Eric _doesn't_ hurt me. Not the way Jason means. "I don't know how he'll punish me for this, but he'll be . . . humane about it."

 _Yes. Because if there is one thing Eric Northman is known for, it's being humane._

"Humane?" Jason repeats. "That's the sorta word you use when you're talkin' 'bout animals. Not . . . kids."

I'm opening my mouth to correct him when a crack opens up inside of me, and all the things around it shake. My hands turn to fists, but only one stays on the table, because I instinctively pop the other one up to block my face from Jason. Sometimes I can feel something from someone without physically reacting at all. But sometimes, with big things, my body can't help but respond. My face can't help but smile or frown or, as is the case now, flinch.

"Annie? Hey – what's wrong?"

I smooth my expression, though it takes some effort. I lower my hand, toss back my hair. "Nothing. I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

But I barely hear what he says back, because my insides are still shaking. All of me is still shaking.

Eric knows.

. . . . .

"Hey," Jessica's voice crackles into my ear. I step along the edge of the old floral rug that covers most of Sookie's living room floor, pretending I'm walking a balance beam. Not really, of course. It's been a long time since I've pretended anything for real. The voicemail continues, "Um . . . I get you not wantin' to talk to me, but Annie, I . . . I feel really bad about what I said to you before."

She means when she called me an hour or so ago, right after sundown. Jason had called Hoyt to explain the situation, because he knows I stay at his house when I'm in Bon Temps. And Hoyt told Jessica everything when she woke up. So I gathered, anyway. Jessica was a bit too busy to give me details concerning how she found out what had happened. Busy, that is, with yelling at me, mainly finding new ways to ask if I'd considered what Eric might do to her and Hoyt if something happened to me under their watch. Throughout the whole (mainly one-sided) conversation, Jason pretended not to eavesdrop. I glance through the foyer now, into the kitchen, where he's sitting at the table, rearranging his pieces on a _Sorry!_ gameboard. Pretending not to eavesdrop.

"I was just . . . freaked out by the whole thing," Jessica says. There's some background noise, someone shouting, some laughter. She must be working tonight, at Merlotte's. I can't remember if she told me she was, though. "And I'm sorry, I know I must've sounded like I was just all worried about myself, and I'm – I'm not, I know you . . . I know you're probably gonna have a lot to deal with from this. I'm sure Eric's . . . Just, I'm thinkin' about you, is all. So, call me? When you can? I'm not mad anymore, I swear. That was stupid, just . . . Let me know you're okay . . . Bye."

 _Click,_ and then nothing but silence from my phone.

It _was_ stupid of her to be mad, to be worried about herself – not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It's just that she clearly hasn't grasped how different her life is now that her maker is king. Eric won't touch her. He probably wouldn't have anyway, considering I sneaked out of her and Hoyt's place during the day – when she was sleeping and he was at work – and therefore there wasn't much of anything Jessica, or any vampire, could have done to stop me. Especially since – as far as I know – she never suspected I might do something like that. Any of the four times I did.

Honestly . . . I never would have behaved like this if I thought Eric might take it out on Jessica, or Hoyt, for that matter. I like them both. I've been spending a couple of nights with them a couple of times a month for a few months now, and I like that, too. It's a nice break from Shreveport.

Well, it was. I very much doubt it will be happening anymore.

Jessica really is worried about me. I could hear it in her voice, just now. She's still a young vampire. She still cares a lot.

That'll pass.

I return to the kitchen and slip my phone into the pocket of my coat, draped over the back of a chair. Jason's eyes follow my hand there and back, then meet mine. "That Jessica again?"

He knows it was, but I nod anyway.

"What she say?"

"Nothing. Well wishes."

"Ah, I knew she'd feel bad once she calmed down a bit. Jessica, she's one of the good ones." He looks down at the board, but even without eye contact, I feel a burst of warm affection rush from him and through me. Affection for Jessica. Jason is extremely, _extremely_ easy to read, and I've picked up something like that, that burst, almost every time I've been around him at Jessica and Hoyt's. Jason Stackhouse has feelings for his best friend's live-in girlfriend. Who's going to be around, beautiful and vibrant, centuries after both men are dust. It's all very dramatic.

And sad, somehow. Which may be why I've never said anything to Jessica about Jason's feelings.

Jason nods at the board. "Play again?"

"No, thank you. It's a bit too simplistic for my taste."

"Aw, you're just sayin' that 'cause you lost."

"It's _meaningless_ that I lost, there's no skill involved, and –"

Something flashes in the corner of my eye. There's light playing across the window over the sink. And now that Jason and I are both quiet, I can hear the faint, rainlike sound of gravel crunching beneath tires. I reach out and take hold of my coat, clenching the fabric in my fist. It's about an hour's drive between here and Shreveport. When Eric didn't show up right after sunset, I knew he must have opted not to fly. I very much doubt he did so because he knows his car is more comfortable for me. No, he only would have driven because he wanted time to think.

And, maybe, to cool down.

But when I step onto the porch, pulling my coat on, I realize things are worse than that. Because it's not Eric waiting for me out here, but Pam, slamming the door of her sleek little car and striding to the porch in heels far too high for a place like Bon Temps, and certainly for a gravel driveway, though she doesn't seem to even notice the terrain.

"Shit," I breathe as Jason closes the door behind us. I think I feel him look at me, but I keep my eyes on Pam as she reaches the wooden steps. She stops, her face lit up in the dim yellow porch lights and giving me nothing. But . . . it's bad that Eric sent Pam instead of coming himself. I don't know exactly why that is, but I'm certain of it.

Pam locks eyes with me, jerks her head. I push my hands into my coat pockets and take the steps down to her.

"Hi," Jason says behind me. "I'm, uh, Officer Stackhouse. I thought Eric –"

"Sends his regrets. He's a very busy man." Pam studies Jason like an art critic disappointed by a piece. "I'm sure you can understand what that's like. Or . . . imagine it, anyway."

Jason squints down at her. "Hey, have we met?"

I'm pretty sure Jason's been to the club before, so the answer's probably yes. He would have seen Pam in a work outfit, though, something black and trailing and very different from the pastel blouse she's wearing now. But Pam purses her lips. "We have, but I'm not in the reminiscing mood. I need to know if this little incident is going to be documented in any way."

"Uh, documented?"

"Yes, _documented._ Virtually, on paper, with clay tablets, however you're still doing things here, _Officer._ "

"Oh, uh, no ma'am." I think Jason's finally registered that Pam's a vampire. His nerves are buzzing at me. "Like I said in the message I left – I mean, I guess maybe you didn't hear it – but, uh, no, they just – She just got a warnin'. And a call to her – to Eric. Uh, Mr. Northman. That's all."

"Lovely. Thanks so much." Pam's hand snaps onto my shoulder and she turns me, not gently, towards the car. She lets go as we start walking, thankfully, otherwise I'm sure I'd have a bruise.

I glance back at the house as I'm opening the passenger door. Jason's still standing at the top of the steps. Pounding his fist into his palm. It's a bit hard to tell with the porch lights behind him, but I think he's frowning, I think his brow is furrowed, and I think – I think I like Jason Stackhouse.

I slide into the car and buckle my seatbelt. Pam twists the key and guides us down Sookie's long driveway. Eric's long driveway. Whatever.

We don't go fast. When we reach the real road, the asphalt road, Pam pulls onto it without sending gravel flying behind her, which Eric always does. I check the dial by her steering wheel, the one that tells the car's speed. The red hand hovers around forty-five, and I think that's the speed limit, and Pam, she very rarely drives the speed limit. I don't think many vampires do.

"You're a fucking idiot," she says after a minute.

"Thanks, Pam."

"Oh, you _should_ be thanking me, Princess." Her head turns my way, but I'm staring ahead, arms crossed, so I don't see exactly what sort of look I'm getting. I can imagine it well enough. "If I hadn't come to pick you up, _Eric_ would have, and you don't wanna fucking know what he might've done if he'd seen you in the goddamn state he was in. _I_ don't even wanna fucking know."

A strange feeling sprouts in the back of my neck and starts creeping out to the rest of my body. A numbness, entirely mine, like nothing I've ever felt before. But no, it's not a _numbness_ , exactly, it's not totally blank, it's . . . There's a trembling to it. Like something hit me. And I'm in shock from it. "It's that bad?" My voice sounds strangely close, but also not all that much like my voice.

Pam exhales. She must send all of the air out of her little-used lungs in the process. And she shakes her head too, I think. "Goddamn it, Annika."

There's a trembling to her, too.


	5. Hidden Things

**A.N.: Sorry for the wait, guys. This chapter is short, but there's more coming soon. Enjoy.**

 **. . . . .**

 **Present Day**

There are two boxes hidden in the back of my closet. Not really _hidden,_ though, just – unassuming. Both are cardboard boxes from shipments to the bar, or maybe just to Eric or Pam, since they're rather small boxes – one is big enough to hold a cat, the other is big enough to hold a rabbit. A bigger rabbit, like Beowulf was. Like I think he was, anyway. I was much smaller than I am now, the last time I saw him.

Just after dawn – I make sure it's after dawn, I check the Internet for the sunrise time – I go down the hall and boil some water and grind some beans and start brewing coffee, though I carry the French press back to my room before it's ready, bringing a mug along. I set both things on my bedside table and cross the room, to my closet. I slide open the door, slide myself inside the tiny room.

It's a decent-sized closet, with a bar longer than I am tall stretching over my head, keeping all of my clothes just within my reach. The way the door works, though, is that it looks like a double-door but only one side opens – slides over, I mean – so to get to the far left side of my closet I have to side-step along the foot-or-so of space between the non-moving door (and the sliding door that's slid over it) and my hanging clothes. I'm little, though, so it's not much of a chore, as long as my closet is neat, with my shoes all pushed against the wall.

The rabbit-sized box sits on top of the cat-sized box. I pick it up, the rabbit-sized box, and even though it's not the box I'm after, I open it anyway, because . . . just because, I guess. With the light shining in from my bedroom, I look over the contents, the meaningless, unconnected little things all collected together in a place they don't belong. Keychains, lighters, cheap makeup products I'd never use, cheap jewelry I'd never wear, a few pieces of silverware, hair ties, pens, pencils . . . a lovely, random medley of nothing.

But I keep this medley, keep it and build it, so I can come back here and look at it. I suppose it feels good, in some way. I don't know. I've never thought about the _why_ of it. And I won't right now.

I close that box, put it aside, and pick up and open the bigger one. The things it keeps for me come and go, unlike with the other box, where things just come. Tonight, the cat-sized box holds six single-serve bags of Lays potato chips – an even blend of classic, barbeque, and sour cream flavors – and two Kit-Kats, two Reese's, and a Snickers. I loaded up the last time I went to the library. There's a vending machine there, in the big hallway that leads to the bathrooms, out-of-sight of most people – though most people wouldn't care, I suppose, and Ginger was already in the café. She always waits there, reading magazines while I browse. Asking the barista for help with the big words, maybe . . . Anyway. I fed dollar after dollar into the vending machine and packed the junk food into my oversized – and otherwise empty – purse.

Vending machines and giant purses. Those are your best friends when you live with a controlling vampire who disapproves of junk food.

I carry the box into my bedroom, sit on the floor with my back against the bed, and eat it all. I think I start out alternating the salty with the sweet, but I don't really pay attention to what I'm doing after the first minute. I'm just moving. Eating. Eating stuff I'm not supposed to eat, eating stuff Eric hates for me to eat, because Eric is dead in the basement and he can't stop me, he can't stop me, so I eat, I eat it all.

After, I shove the box away and look at all of the colorful, shiny material around me. The Snickers wrapper, when I threw it aside, managed to fall in just the right position for me to see its nutrition label, the calorie count, the amount of sugar, and I roll my eyes away from it, lips tight. "Yeah, yeah, I know," I snap at it, the wrapper, all of the wrappers, and I _do_ know, I do know all the bad things their nutrition labels have to tell me, of course I do, I always check the nutrition labels when I buy food. "Give me a few minutes."

I get to my feet – oh, the middle of me feels like a cannonball – and fill a mug of coffee, some _way_ -after-ten coffee, and I drink it, even though I do so too fast to really enjoy it, even though I burn my tongue and my throat. It's the principle of the thing. I find myself looking at my turntable, at the Michael Jackson record sitting there, waiting to be played, and I pivot away from it and stare at the mess of plastic and crumbs at my feet.

When the coffee's gone, I go into my bathroom and stand over the toilet and poke the back of my throat with my toothbrush until I have all of the chips and all of the candy and all of the coffee out of me again, and then I carefully wash the toothbrush, brush my teeth, and wash my face. I return to my bedroom with one of the plastic bags I have for my bathroom's wastebasket and I gather up all the crinkling wrappers and bags and stuff them into it, into the bigger bag, and I squeeze it small and tie it closed and take it down the hall to the storage room, bringing my French press and mug with me. I throw the trash away, wash my dishes, and grab a little vacuum, a handheld sort of vacuum, from one of the higher shelves – I have to use a stepstool to reach it – and go back to my room, vacuum the crumbs from my pretty white rug, and walk down the hall again to get on the stepstool again and put the vacuum back in its place. And then I go to bed.

My sheets are cold. Normally, I read before I go to sleep, and I like the book that I'm reading now – a novel about a group of teenage girls, friends, at a boarding school for spies. I just reached a part where the main girl meets a boy she likes, and now she has to lie to him about everything. It's a silly novel, a ridiculous novel, but I like it. I don't read it today, though. I never feel like reading after a morning like this. There's nothing good in me after a morning like this, and I don't want to have to live with it, all of this _nothing good,_ for long. I just want to sleep. So I do. It comes easily. Sleep likes me.


	6. Done

**July**

Fangtasia has never seemed so ominous. And I have seen Fangtasia during some pretty dire times.

Pam parks by the employee entrance, as she usually does, and gets out of the car before I realize the engine's off. I unbuckle my seatbelt, though a part of me resists. That part of me, it wants to stay strapped to this seat in this car, because if I stay out here forever, I'll never be in _there._ Inside ominous Fangtasia. With Eric. But that part of me is all instinct, all emotion. It can't see reality. Or it refuses to.

Pam opens my door, which she never, ever has. I slide out of the car and, once I'm standing, roll my shoulders and slip my hands into the pockets of my coat so it fits me more snugly, even though the July night is as warm as you'd expect. My fingers find my phone in my left pocket. In my right, they find a little box and a little tube. Cigarettes and a lighter. I should have found a moment in Bon Temps to throw those out, I suppose.

Pam clamps her hand on my shoulder and steers me to the door, not pushing or pulling me, but moving me in a way that doesn't give me a lot of choice in the matter. "Unless he's asked you a question, keep your mouth shut," she mutters, her voice just a bit too deep. "No smart-ass answers, no smart-ass _expressions,_ none of your emo-preteen bullshit. Do you hear me?"

I look up at her. She must take that as an answer, as a _yes,_ because she doesn't ask again, but really all I'm doing is trying to read her. One way or another. And it's not hard. Her face is mostly in shadow, with just a streetlight shining orange over us, but I don't need to see details to see how stony it is. And her head is tilted down, her glimmering eyes locked on the door the way I've seen them locked on people, certain people. The magister comes to mind. Nan Flanagan, too. Russell Edgington . . . Pam's looking at the door the way she looks at a threat. At a fight waiting to happen.

This fight won't be hers, is the thing.

Pam pulls open the door without taking her hand from me, though she shifts it down to my back to press me ahead of her, and I step into the dark back hallway of my so-called home, but I only take one step more after that, because Eric is here.

He's down the hall a bit. He's been pacing, probably. He's not now. He's still now. And he's mostly just a shape, in this light. But I can see the glint of his eyes, just like I could with Pam's outside, and now I'm thinking about pictures I've seen of animals at night, of predators, nearly invisible in some deep shadow except for their eyes, latched onto some oblivious little creature that was only ever going to be prey.

Eric's eyes are latched onto me, of course.

The door shuts behind me, maybe harder than normal. The _bang_ echoes in a strange, cold way, and my shoulders have curled forward, haven't they? I try to force them back, I really do. But my muscles don't care what I want right now. I don't think they trust my mind much anymore.

For what feels like an hour, none of us says anything, and then Eric's eyes flash to the side, to Pam – for a split second, I feel relieved, like someone strong was holding me under water and finally let me up to breathe – and then he turns away and Pam's hand is tight on my shoulder and she's moving me forward again, and I'm back beneath the surface.

Pam and I follow Eric into the bar, a space not built for just three people. Not built for yelling at a twelve-year-old, certainly. If I've done wrong, Eric usually deals with me in his office or my room, never here. But . . . I get it, I think. I can feel Eric, just a little, like I usually can if he's really, really feeling something, and Eric – he's vibrating. Making the air vibrate. There's a lot inside of him, and even though he might not feel that in the same way I feel it, I can't imagine he wants to be in a small space right now. He has too much in him to be in a small space.

If nothing else, he'll want plenty of room to pace.

As if to prove that last part right, Eric strides to the other side of the room, and in the meantime Pam directs me to a couch and all but plants me there. She looks at Eric's back – not at me – before turning away. She doesn't go for the door. Instead, she walks to the bar and settles there, not sitting, just leaning back against it. Watching Eric.

This is wrong. Pam staying here. It's wrong, the way Eric bringing me into the bar instead of the usual rooms is wrong. Pam doesn't discipline me, not beyond _Don't do that_ or something that means the same. That's not what she is to me, it never has been. Eric is my guardian. Eric handles these things. Alone.

But here Pam is, albeit on the sidelines. And with the coming-into-the-bar thing, at least I could figure out a reason. I can't with this, I don't understand, but I know, I'm _certain_ it's a bad sign, and I draw my coat tighter around me. Only then I notice how _bare_ my legs are in these stupid tiny shorts, and so I roll out of my coat and drape it over my knees. But this tank top lets my belly button show, and suddenly I hate that, and I tug the coat further up my legs and bundle it up a bit to cover those few inches of torso. My calves are still showing, as are my shoulders and neck and arms, but this is the best I can do.

This really is a ridiculous outfit.

Eric's coming back.

He stops a few paces – his paces, not mine – away from my table. All of my life, Eric's stressed the importance of eye contact. In the Western world, it's generally a way to show you're paying attention, or a way to come off as confident, as being in control. A way to get what you want, even – a tool. Not that I was ever supposed to make eye contact with Eric with that last possibility in mind. Not that I would ever think I could get away with it.

My point is, Eric prefers I look at him during our conversations, even the unpleasant ones – especially the unpleasant ones, at least at their most important parts. But I can't look at him right now. I hate that, I hate that . . . that _weakness_ in me, _this_ weakness in me, but it's here, it's a fact, and my head stays down, my eyes stay on my hands. My hands, folded together, strangely serene. They don't even look like mine, come to think of it.

Eric begins.

"If at any point in this conversation you lie to me, I will know, and I will make you wish very much that you hadn't." His voice is low, far too low, and gravelly. It's one of his worst voices. "Do you understand?"

I don't, not fully, because _I will make you wish very much that you hadn't_ isn't a very detailed threat. But it's effective. That's all that matters, that's all he wants me to confirm. So I nod.

"Have you sneaked out of Jessica's before?"

"Yes."

"How many times?"

My tongue has trouble forming the word, trouble pushing it out. "Five."

Since my head's down, I don't see in detail how Eric reacts to this. I only see what the corner of my eye can make out. The big picture. In the big picture, Eric stays where he is and makes no major gestures. But I know I can't trust that image. Eric might have stiffened, his expression might have changed. Or, maybe he _did_ actually stay completely still. He's good at concealing his thoughts, his feelings, so maybe he didn't react to my answer in any physical way whatsoever. That's possible. And meaningless. Because there's no way I can tell Eric I've disobeyed him five times and not affect him, even if he doesn't want to let it show. Yet.

It _does_ show a little, though, when he talks again. There's a new, unique sort of strain to his tone, something like the screeching sound tires make if a car turns too fast. "Five?" he repeats. That's it.

I watch the stranger's hands in my lap tighten their hold on one another, almost cautiously, as if they're not sure if they need to be scared or not. "Yes."

And now, now Eric moves – enough, I mean, for it to show up in the big picture. He turns away – no, half-turns away, so he faces the wall to my right, and he takes one step forward, just one, and then there's another snap of movement – him jabbing his hand at the ground, I think – and now Eric's asking, still in the dangerous sort of _quietly_ , "And was it always to do this? To meet and get drunk with idiot children you don't know? That _I_ don't know?"

"I didn't –" No, _no,_ I press my lips together.

But Eric snaps, "What?" and so I have to finish. My hands sort of seize against each other. No more caution, no more uncertainty. They're nervous now, and definitely mine.

"I didn't get drunk," I say.

"You didn't get drunk?" Eric takes another step, this one towards me, and my spine bends forward like a spoon in a magic trick. _"That's_ your defense?" he asks – hisses, he's hissing now.

"It's not a defense. I'm just – you said I got drunk, and I didn't. I drank, but I didn't get drunk."

"Oh, I see. And seeing as you are _twelve years old_ , you undoubtedly have excellent judgement when it comes to your level of _sobriety_."

I dig the nails of my intertwined fingers into the soft skin between my knuckles. _You let me drink in Europe!,_ a small, angry voice shouts from my insides. It's a stupid voice, a childish voice, a voice that should know – like the rest of me – that Eric allowing me a small glass of wine with dinner a handful of times while supervised is not the same, not _nearly_ the same as what I've been doing in Bon Temps. Even if what I've been doing in Bon Temps really isn't that bad. And it's _not._ I could have been doing worse. Lots of kids do.

 _You're supposed to be better than them, though. And don't you want to be?_

"Answer my question. Was it always to do this?"

Now Eric is being a bit louder, a bit harsher, as if I'd been _refusing_ to answer him, and that makes all the worse my having to say, "What do you mean?" which I _do_ have to, because my mind has suddenly become annoyingly, infuriatingly incapable and I can't remember what he first asked.

"Were you always sneaking out of Jessica's," he says, in a way like dripping lava, "to meet with these people and drink?"

"Yes."

A long pause, during which I feel Eric's eyes on me. They're two swords stabbing my skull. "Who supplied the alcohol?"

Oh, God. "Different people." The truth.

"Including you?"

I huff out a shaky sigh – no, it pulls itself from me, fleeing. "Tw-twice."

Goddamn it, _goddamn it!_ That stutter, that _stupid_ stutter catches me by surprise and just sounds _wrong,_ like when a record skips, and my anxiety, my discomfort is suddenly rushed over and drowned out by a flood – irrationally strong, I know it even in the moment – of anger at myself, because I _stuttered._ I hate, hate, _hate_ when I stutter, especially to Eric, I hate it so much, I hate how cowardly, how _small_ it sounds –

"So on top of everything else," Eric says, and, _click,_ the anger is gone, vanished completely, leaving only my buzzing nerves and twisting stomach again. "The disobedience, the deception . . . putting yourself in a vulnerable position in the _daytime_. . . You stole from me as well?"

I close my eyes.

An instant later, a circle of iron claps across the back of my neck – only of course it's only Eric's hand, but really, really, what's the difference? – and Eric shakes me, not hard, he might not even mean to do it, but I'm jerked back and forth and I whimper and Eric's face is inches from mine, and I accidentally meet his eyes and they freeze my blood and Eric snarls, "Do you have any idea what I have done to people who have _STOLEN FROM ME?!"_

Those last three words blow over my face, causing stray hairs to tremble, and slam into my eardrums, too, hard enough to hurt, but not hard enough that I miss myself whimpering again, more this time, more _pathetically_ this time, and my leg is folded into my chest now, muscles tight, driving my heel into the couch and trying to push me back, away from Eric, but it's pointless because he won't let go, he's right in front of me and his fangs are probably out and he _won't let go –_

" _Eric."_

Pam said that. Pam's still here. I forgot about her. Or maybe not, maybe my brain just became too busy and didn't have enough room to think about her, but maybe that _is_ forgetting, I don't know, I don't know, I just know I want Eric to let go of me, I want that very much.

My hand is on his. On his, on the back of my neck. I lift mine off, but just by an inch, because the room is so still now and I don't want to move more than that.

Eric lets me go. Not right after Pam speaks, some time goes by after that, his head so close to mine and my ears ringing and my body in his control, but then the iron collar snaps off and Eric straightens to his full height and steps back, and I press my own, tiny hand against my neck. I have to weave through my hair to do it. My hair – Did Eric shove it out of his way to grab me? Or did he just grab me over it? Probably the former. He likes my hair. He'd never want to damage it.

His head is a thousand miles above mine now, and I stare at my knee, still folded into my body. Eric turns away, walks away. My heart is pounding, I feel every beat, my body jumps with each one. It's working hard, my heart, because it has to send all the ice through my body, and I'm sure it sounds to Eric like someone is inside me and beating on a drum. Beating out a _drumroll_ on a drum. Drumrolls always come before big things, don't they? What's coming, then?

My head's low but my gaze is up enough to find Pam's lovely stilettos. _That was why,_ something whispers to me. _That was why she stayed here._

I'm not sure how much time passes before Eric talks again. He paces back and forth in front of the couch a few times, but _a few_ could be three or ten, I'm too occupied with my knee and my heartbeat to tell, but he _does_ talk again, not yelling or bellowingbut certainly snapping, snapping and still pacing, the words almost sound like afterthoughts.

"Exactly what sort of things were you doing with these kids?"

"Talking," I say, surprisingly easily, though my tongue feels odd, feels _off,_ like it moved over a centimeter and my mouth hasn't adjusted to the change. My ears might have moved, too, they're not hearing quite right, my mouth sounds farther away than it is. "And listening to music."

"Were there drugs?"

I think alcohol counts as a drug, but of course Eric knows about the alcohol, and cigarettes have nicotine and nicotine is a drug but I don't think people are usually talking about cigarettes when they talk about drugs, but still, still I say, "Cigarettes," because I'm not sure.

"Yes, I know there were cigarettes, I smell them on you. Anything else?"

"No."

"Have you had sex with anyone?" he says – only he wouldn't say that, so I have to ask _What?_ and he says, "Have you. Had _sex_. With anyone?" and I blink and I think my eyebrows come together, yes, I feel them do that.

"Of course not."

"I need to know if you have, do you understand me?"

"I haven't," I say, thinking that I've only gotten my period seven times, that I barely need a bra, and do people have sex when they're as young as I am? Should I want to? I don't want to, not with Dylan or any of those people, I like how Dylan looks at me when I dance because I like that I can make him do that, but I don't want more than that, more than him looking. But maybe that's wrong. Maybe there's something wrong with me, one more thing wrong with me, and Eric has stopped, he's stopped pacing, he's looking at me, I feel it, his eyes are still swords. Cold swords. Maybe made entirely of ice. Most parts of Eric are, maybe all of them, and I bet that's nice.

He talks and I listen.

"What have you been _thinking?_ All of these times – _five_ of them – what could possibly have been going through your head that made you think what you were doing was in any way a good idea? In any way goodfor you? You had to have known I would find out eventually! If nothing else – if you didn't get hurt, if someone didn't _hurt_ you – you had to have known I would find out! That you would end up in some version of this moment! That _I_ would! Do you see where you have gotten us? Do you understand the position you've put me in? Had you committed a _fraction_ of these indiscretions, had you _only_ lied _,_ _only_ sneaked off, _only_ drank with strangers, it would call for serious consequences. But you have done all of those things and more, and you have done them _multiple times!_ You have _endangered yourself_ multiple times! And _I_ have to figure out what to do about that! _I_ have to punish you for that! And I'm finding it difficult to think of a way to do so that is proportional to your actions and yet doesn't, in all likelihood, result in you hating me for the rest of your human life! _That_ is where you have gotten us, Annika. Well done."

Eric yelled during that. On and off. A lot at the end, loudly at the end, except for those last two sentences, those were quiet. Not good quiet, he sort of hissed and growled, all at once. He moved while he spoke, but not a lot, not in the big picture. He came towards me a bit, threw an arm out, that sort of thing. And me, I've sat here, staring at my knee, only it's my knee and my hands, because the hands clasped together on top of the knee at some point, and the hands, my hands, they're taking all of this than I, clinging to each other, trembling, stark white, bloodless. Terrified. I'm not terrified. I _have_ terror, that's inside of me, sure, but I don't feel it, does that make sense? I don't feel anything, not anything, except maybe I'm tired. Is that right? It's something like that. I'm tired, and I want it done. This. The punishment. I want it done so it can be over and I can listen to music alone and sleep.

A while later: "I have been patient these last few months," and Eric is still speaking quietly, but it's not the hiss-growl quietly, it's less ferocious, and I think Eric may be tired-or-something-like-that, too. "You know I have. You have wanted nothing to do with me, you shrink from my touch, you are made angry by my mere entrance. You have rebuffed every one of the _many_ attempts I have made to find out what is wrong with you, to find out how I can make things better, and I, in turn, have been patient. Through every eyeroll, every passive-aggressive comment, every brooding silence– even when it went against my instincts, even in moments when I would have resorted to force with anyone else – I. Have been. _Patient_. Because I had to assume it was a phase. That you would come out of it in time. And because you do not have the easiest life, Annika, and believe it or not, I am aware of that, and I try to make it easier for you when I can, because I –" He stops there and doesn't start again for a minute, maybe literally, maybe more than that. Maybe not, though. He's closer than he was before, I'm within his reach, but then again, I always am.

"I am _done_ being patient," is what he says when he finally continues. "You have cost us both that luxury. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with you. I need to think." Then, almost in a mutter, almost to himself, "Had I, at your age, behaved this way for my father, been this _insolent_ . . . he would have beaten me until I bled."

Eric turns away as he finishes saying this, and maybe that – him turning – has something to do with what happens to me. But no, I don't think so. I think his words are entirely to blame. One in particular. It lands on me and snags something, something that's been draped over me like a sheet – no, a net, it's a net – and snaps it, viciously and immediately, and I'm free, and I'm _feeling,_ everything swells up inside of me – hurt, regret, stupid fucking love, and yes, terror – but nothing so much as the anger. The _rage._ And my rage, it's always been the typical, burning sort of rage. It isn't this time. This time, I take after him, after Eric – my rage is pure, stony ice.

"You're not my father," I say to his back, my voice cold and perfectly, perfectly smooth, the ice rising within me, pushed up by all the other things fighting below it, fighting to burst into the world, but they have nothing on the rage, nothing at all.

Eric seems to have expected me to speak. I don't think he actually did, I don't know why he would have, but he just twists around so fast. His words come out almost immediately after mine. He doesn't yell, exactly. He's forceful. That's the best way to put it.

"And what do you think he would have done _to a slave?"_

That something outside of me. The snapped thing. The net. It falls off. Falls away. And so do the things inside of me. All of them. The ice. The things beneath it. Maybe organs and blood. I'm empty. I'm bare. Just like that. _Snap._

We look at each other, Eric and I. I don't know when he met my eyes. During, I think. Maybe at the end. I don't really see them. I don't try to. They're just swords, anyway. My gaze drifts down. Like it's latched to a balloon. Maybe I _am_ a balloon. A deflating balloon. I feel light like a balloon. So much so. My sight is blurred. Tears. From before, when it was icy. Not from now. I cry when I'm angry. Not when I'm a balloon. I blink some. My sight clears.

Eric is walking away. He talks. It sounds like echoes. "We'll continue this later. Get out of – Go to your room."

I'm on my feet. I floated there. Now I'm floating more. Floating away from the couch. Floating past chairs and tables and Pam and the bar, floating through the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. Floating down the hall. Floating into my room, where I close myself in before floating to my bed, and there, only there and only then, do I sink, sink, sink to the floor. Balloons never stay floating long, do they? The air trickles out of them, sometimes quickly and sometimes not, but always, always, you can't stop it. And then the balloon isn't even a balloon anymore. It's just a cold piece of crumpled plastic, lying limp and alone, and you wonder why you even got the balloon in the first place. And the poor limp balloon can't make an argument for itself, because it's empty and done. Yes, that's the best word for it, isn't it? Done.

Later, much later, I take a shower for forever, and it's only about halfway through that when I stop pretending to be a balloon – _pop_ – and feel what I have to. I don't see it coming, but when it does, I press my head against the wet white wall and cry. Then I slide to the wet white floor and cry. For so many reasons. Crying helps with none of them, but I cry anyway, because I'm scared and I'm lonely and I'm hurt _,_ it just _hurts,_ and because I don't know who I have to be brave for anymore.


	7. Surprise

**A.N.: Thank you to everyone who reached out during my unannounced, unplanned hiatus. All is well, and I so appreciate your ongoing interest in Annika. I hope you're ready to jump back in. Enjoy.**

 **. . . . .**

 **Present Day**

The computer lab is mostly empty. A pair of girls my age – they might be a little older – sit giggling at a screen in the corner opposite mine, and a man with dreadlocks and a tie types rapidly into a computer a few desks away from them, but that's it, that's all the people here. Other than me, of course, settled at one of the three most private computers in the lab. These three computers – I'm at the one in the middle – are tucked against the one spot in the wall that actually _is_ wall, entirely wall, not wall-and-glass. A never-ending window stretches around most of the room, for reasons I don't understand. All you can see from inside here is the main part of the library – in other words, shelves and strangers passing by – and all you can see from _outside_ here is a dimly-lit computer lab and strangers staring at screens, and I can't imagine that's particularly entertaining or informative. So, it's pointless, that never-ending window. And I don't like it. It makes me feel like I'm in an exhibit at a museum, and it makes me question my privacy when I sit in the wrong place.

But, like I said – I'm in the right place. The wall behind me here is real wall, because that's the part of this room that intersects with part of the librarian's office. No one can sneak up behind me and see my screen.

Not that a lot of people are trying to do that. Most people couldn't care less what I'm doing, obviously, but – _some_ people care. At least two. And if Eric or Pam ever happened to suspect me of anything, and happened to follow me to the library, and happened to see the sort of thing that's on my screen right now . . . The results could be bad. Deadly, even.

If _most_ people glanced at my computer, though, they wouldn't think anything of it. All that's on the screen is an email, just an email, and it's a rather _short_ email, even. Especially when you consider that I've been working on it for over an hour.

 _ **J,**_

 _ **Sorry I haven't emailed you lately. I just don't have much to talk about. Not much happens to me. E doesn't let much happen to me.**_

 _ **I changed my hair last month, so I guess that's something. It's four inches shorter now, with bangs across the forehead and long layers and blonde highlights. Well, blonder highlights, I suppose. And some lowlights, too, of what the stylist called "ash blonde," which just looks grey to me, but I like it.**_

 _ **I finally got**_ **Sheer Heart Attack** _ **on vinyl. I don't know if I'm going to get**_ **A Night at the Opera** _ **next or something else. Maybe that will be the topic of my next email.**_

 _ **Like I said. Not much happens to me.**_

 _ **I did look at the website of that band you said you were considering one or two emails ago. I liked the singer. She's a great performer. I know you like those.**_

 _ **That's all I have. I hope you're well.**_

 _ **\- A**_

It occurs to me, upon rereading the message, that telling Jack about changes I've made to my hair is – for more reasons than one – incredibly, absurdly idiotic. I delete that entire paragraph. Doing so takes the email from _rather_ short to just short, but I'll have to live with that . . . I add an _I think_ to my _She's a great performer_ comment, because I don't want to sound as if I consider myself an expert on such things, particularly not in an email to someone who _is_ an expert on such things. Then I change _Sorry I haven't emailed you lately_ to _I realize I haven't emailed you lately,_ because apologizing can make you sound weak.

The last change I make, and only after considering it for a few seconds, is to delete the final sentence of my first paragraph – _E doesn't let much happen to me._ In theory, Jack is the perfect person to complain about Eric to, but in practice . . . Well, Jack and I talked about Eric each of the (few) times we met in person – How could we not? – and whenever that happened, everything about Jack changed. His muscles would go rigid, he'd keep his head pointed straight forward, and his voice took on a tone that was soft on the surface but sharp, _so_ sharp underneath, because if you use a tone like that you must want to cut something open.

It wasn't just what I saw and heard, though. I felt things, too. I could never read much of anything from Jack, since he's a vampire, but his loathing for Eric kept creeping out, brushing me with black, simmering hands, burning me in a way I've never felt before . . .

Something cold touches the skin just over my neckline, and an instant after I realize that, I realize it's my own hand. Ready to scratch out any emotions I'd like to spill from my body. I place that hand in my other and squeeze, hard.

Around the time my fingers have turned too red in some spots and too white in others, I pull my hands apart and press _Send_. The email vanishes from the screen, replaced by a promise that my message has been sent. The tiny clock in the monitor's bottom-right corner tells me it's almost eight. Ginger will want to take me back to the club soon. Eric doesn't like me to be gone for more than a couple of hours.

I log out of this email account – _demoniclilgoblin -_ an address I created just for emailing Jack, since Eric knows my normal email and can go through it anytime he wants. I sling my too-big, too-empty purse over my shoulder and head for the door, passing the two my-age-or-a-little-older girls, who are giggling again – or who are _still_ giggling, rather. They've been doing it almost constantly, like fountains trickling water. It's an annoying sound.

I go automatically to the fiction section, even though I still have my spy novel back at the club. I wanted to come to the library mainly to email Jack – I'd never risk doing so on my laptop – but if I come back without new books, Eric will be suspicious. So, I'll find something, pick up Ginger from the magazine section, and we'll go.

My oversized purse bounces gently against my hip. Something about it is like a tap on the shoulder, and my plan changes, almost on its own: I'll find something, and I'll go to those vending machines that are too close to the restrooms. Then I'll pick up Ginger from the magazine section. And we'll go.

. . . . .

"You gotta try one of those Java Chillers from Sonic, now that you're drinkin' coffee," Ginger says – _chirps,_ that's a good word for it – as we walk through the library's parking garage. It's brightly lit, the garage, and this is a good part of town (so I'm told), but the library is about to close and most of the cars are gone. The garage, a big, multi-leveled place meant to hold a lot of things, does not wear emptiness well. The _click-clack_ of Ginger'sboots echo around us for something like forever.

Ginger, however, doesn't seem particularly affected by our environment. "They're espresso and ice cream all blended together, topped off with a big ole dollop of whipped cream, and they come in all different flavors. I always get the caramel, I like that best, but I've tried mocha too. It almost was as good. There's a third one you can get, but I can't remember what it is. Some sorta nut, maybe? Not pistachio, but one of them weird ones . . . Anyway, how 'bout we swing by and get a couple?"

"If I'm going to eat something as caloric as ice cream, it needs to be _good_ ice cream." As I say this, my free hand traces a seam of my purse, which – aside from my wallet, my cell phone, and the two books I checked out – is filled with a variety of crinkly-plastic-wrapped foods that are quite caloric and quite _not_ -good, quality-wise. But . . . okay, truthfully, only part of my mind dwells on that. The rest of my mind is at a gelateria in Milan, occupied with an immense scoop of the flavor Eric said translated the closest to cookies-and-cream but which was so, _so_ much better, _ridiculously_ better, than any cookies-and-cream I'd ever had before. When was that? Late January? I was wearing my new leather gloves, I remember that, I had to take them off so the gelato wouldn't drip on them . . . Yes, it must have been late January. We were in Sweden through December, then all around Central Europe through _most_ of January, but we arrived in Italy a few days before February. I was excited about Italy, because Eric – in his way – was excited about Italy. He told me I'd like Florence the best. He was right. But I never found gelato like that gelato in Milan.

"You don't mean like a pool, do ya?"

Milan and its incredible gelato whirl out of my mind like water down a drain. Like Ginger pulled a plug. "What?"

"You said _somethin' as chloric as ice cream._ Are you tellin' me that the same stuff that's in pools is in –"

"Oh, dear God . . . _Caloric. Cuh_ -loric, Ginger, not . . . There's no chlorine in ice cream, Ginger. Or – I don't know, maybe there is, but it's not . . . an _ingredient_."

"Why would it be in it if it's not an ingredient?"

I almost explain to her that chlorine is an element, but decide not to, partially because I'm only about seventy percent sure I'm remembering that correctly (my science lessons have been focused on physics lately, and, also, chemistry bores me immensely), but mostly because the idea of discussing anything remotely scientific with Ginger sounds like the beginning of a joke. "Good point," is what I say. "Silly me."

"Hm."

We're almost to the far side of the garage, where Ginger's beat-up little white car waits for us in its ever-patient, somehow-hopeless way. The car exit is to our right, a giant gap in the wall revealing a yellow-lit piece of the street outside. A month ago, you could hear crickets chirping from here, but they're all gone now. I wonder what happens to them when autumn comes, if they hibernate like some animals do, or if they all just die. What a sad little life that would be.

Ginger is talking again. "Well, anyway. I love them Java Chillers. And they _are_ good ice cream. There's no harm in you givin' 'em a try. Whatdya say, wanna stop on the way back?"

"No, thank you."

In an effort to avoid the pillar to the right of her parking spot, Ginger parked several inches over the left parking-spot line, stealing room from the space beside her. I almost point this out, but Ginger shakes her head, earrings jangling, and tells me, "Annie, honey, if you never try new things, you're gonna miss out on a lot of fun in life."

"Thank you, Ginger. If I've never said so, I greatly value your advice."

"Well, that's awfully sweet of you –"

"She's nothing if not sweet."

I jump a little, because this interruption comes from a new voice. Ginger, meanwhile, shrieks, and that sharp little sound slices through the parking garage and stabs back at us as an echo just as my mind comprehends that the new voice is Eric's and that Eric is leaning against the pillar beside Ginger's car. The corner of my guardian's mouth curls up, just a tiny bit, and before I know what's happening I feel an equally tiny rush of warmth deep inside me. Affection. I can't help it. For most of my life, the greatest prize I knew was a pleased look from Eric. I'm programmed to like him most when he looks like that.

Ginger presses a hand to her chest as her shriek dies around us. "Oh, Lord! You nearly scared me to death!"

"Sorry, Ginger." Eric slides his eyes to me and says, in a softer voice, "I need to speak with you."

Normally, Eric saying that would do little more than annoy me, but _normally_ he'd be saying it at the club. He isn't. He came to meet me elsewhere to say it, almost certainly going out of his way to do so. "Is something wrong?" I ask.

"No. I'll explain. Come, I'm parked outside. Ginger, take the rest of the night off."

 _Parked?_ Eric never drives me anywhere anymore. When he has to take me somewhere, we always fly. Neither of us has to talk when we fly.

I go to Eric, and Ginger takes a step towards him, too. "Are you sure you don't need me for any –"

"I am." Eric turns for the street. I walk beside him, my steps – as ever – too short. Eric has to slow his strides for me to keep up. I can't stand that he has to do that.

Ginger drives past us just as we reach the street. She honks, we both ignore her, and her little white car zips away.

"Does she drive that fast when you're in the car?" Eric asks as she turns a corner.

"I've never noticed." I think she probably does, but I haven't ever actually checked the car's speed, and it's hard to be certain if Ginger drives faster than people should drive when the only other drivers I'm ever with are vampires. Vampires don't care about speed limits. Vampires don't crash cars.

Eric leads me down the street. I grip the strap of my purse as we walk, pinning it against my shoulder while my free hand stretches across my stomach – subtly, I hope – to keep the bag still. I can't hear the junk food crinkling around inside of it, but Eric might be able to. "What's going on?"

"I'm taking you for coffee. Or for something to eat, if you'd like."

It's not an offer. He's stating a fact. "Why?"

"I told you. I need to speak with you." He glances down, catching my eyes on him. "Nothing is wrong, Annika, I promise," he says as I look away. "In fact, I'll think you'll be pleased."

"By what?"

"Let's sit somewhere first. Would you like coffee or food? Both, perhaps?"

"Just coffee. Please." I want to point out that Eric would save time by starting to explain things now, but it wouldn't do any good. He's clearly decided our sitting somewhere is of the upmost importance to this conversation, a requirement that doesn't really strike me as going hand-in-hand with him giving me news I'll find pleasing.

 _If he really cared about pleasing me, he wouldn't be making me go somewhere with him just for a chat._

 _No matter that him doing exactly that would have been the highlight of my week not even a year ago._

The highlight of my month, in all likelihood. Eric picking me up by surprise to take me out, to sit and talk, to give me his full attention? I would have been thrilled, I would have been _ecstatic_ . . . Eight months ago. Just eight months ago.

Stupid little girl.

I miss her sometimes.


	8. A Proposition

Steam flows over my face as I spin my mug around, slowly, trying to keep the coffee inside as still as possible. Almost like I'm tricking it. _No, dear, everything's fine, I promise. Be still_. The steam's probably opening my pores. I don't think that's good, when you have makeup on. I sort of remember reading something about that in a magazine.

"That nail polish is a good shade for you." Eric is across from me at this all-too-little table, the sort of elevated table so many cafés have. I'm sitting on a hard, wooden something that's more barstool than chair, but really not either. My feet are a long way from touching the floor. That bothers me more than it should. "I don't see you wear red often."

I half-raise one hand to study my nails. Eric's right, this deep, almost-rusty red isn't a color I'd normally choose, but I read that red is a _power color_ , so when Ginger took me shopping last week I slipped into a cosmetics store and slipped this polish into my bag. And I like how it looks on me, especially with my tan – my _fake_ tan. I always feel like I have to specify that it's fake, even though I don't like saying so, because _fake_ seems to imply _bad_ and I think my tan, while mild, is actually a pretty good tan. A pretty good tan that works well with rusty red. Apparently.

I wish Eric hadn't complimented the polish, though. I like things better when he doesn't like them. "Thank you."

We're in the corner of this café, a local business, not something from a chain. The concrete floor is covered here and there by beige woven rugs, and our table – all the tables, plus the bar running through the middle of the room – are made from a not-pale, not-dark wood. Simple, the whole place is simple, and I like that, I suppose. The café is pretty busy, but there's still an empty table between Eric and me and the closest other customers, an old man and woman who are reading books and not talking.

Eric taps all four fingers on the table, one after the other. I only see this with my peripheral vision, because I'm back to playing the spinning game with my coffee. I'm not great at it, truthfully. The coffee trembles no matter how gently I try to spin the mug. Maybe I'm not so great a trickster as I'd like to be. As some people are.

So I give up on the game, and I wrap both hands around the mug and turn my attention to other things that aren't Eric. Two men, for instance, who I think are on a date – they're at a table in a shadowy corner, leaning close to one another, smiling like they have a secret. And at the far end of the bar, there's a young, overweight woman curling over her laptop, forehead scrunched in a way that'll give her wrinkles. To my right, across the room, the barista with an eyebrow piercing wipes the counter with a stained white rag. I decided she was a woman when I ordered my coffee, but now I think she – he? They? Surely not _it?_ – might be a man, at least biologically. I watch as he (or she or they or it) slides open a panel of the glass pastry display to reach in a tattooed arm and straighten an enormous muffin. Oh, the pastry display – it's impressive, I feel like I should acknowledge that. Its three shelves are absolutely packed with giant cookies, pretzels, muffins (as mentioned), cupcakes, cheesecakes . . . basically everything you might expect from a pastry display.

Unless you'd expect a cinnamon bun. For whatever reason, the café evidently has none of those. Of course, I wouldn't get one if there were – the U.S., or at least Louisiana, doesn't know how to make cinnamon buns. By which I mean Louisiana doesn't know how to make cinnamon buns the way Sweden makes cinnamon buns. The cinnamon buns here, they're too big, too cake-like and sugary, and really, I don't think you can say they're even in the same family as the cinnamon buns in Sweden.

Any cinnamon bun I could get in Louisiana would probably contain an average of a billion or so calories, anyway.

"Are you hungry?"

Eric's eyebrows are up. He noticed where my eyes were. "No. Thank you." I shift in my seat and sip my coffee. It's sub-par coffee. Far too mild, a bit burnt.

"I heard you telling Ginger how _caloric_ ice cream is, in the parking garage. You're not trying to diet, are you?"

"You order all of my meals. You'd know if I were dieting."

"You shouldn't be thinking about calories, not at your age. Not at your size, for that matter."

"I'm _not_ thinking about calories." The lie flows so naturally from my lips that I feel an echo of genuine anger at Eric's suspicion. "It was just an excuse for Ginger. So I didn't have to eat cheap ice cream from a fast-food place."

Eric taps all four fingers again, _tap-tap-tap._ All four fingers, but only three beats, like when a horse runs. I wonder why hands and horses work like that. It's the sort of thing I would have brought up to Eric, at one time.

"What books did you check out?" he asks after a minute.

 _This is_ not _what we came here to talk about._ "Um, one's a novel. Something newer, and YA, you wouldn't know it."

"YA?"

"Young adult."

"And the others?"

"Just one other. A collection of six modern plays."

"Which plays?"

" _The Glass Menagerie,_ and . . . something by Arthur Miller, but it's not _The Crucible_. I can't remember the names of the rest."

"Didn't I take you to see a production of _The Glass Menagerie_ a couple of years ago? In New Orleans?"

"That was _A_ _Streetcar Named Desire._ "

"Mm . . . You like Tennessee Williams?"

"Yes."

He says nothing, because this is the part where he would like me to elaborate. I sip my coffee. I stare at my coffee. I sip my coffee again.

Eric leans back in his seat – which can't be easy, since the back of it is maybe six inches high – and stretches his leg out on the floor below us. He can't stretch it far, since these barstool-chairs are so much higher than normal, but his foot still crosses over into my half of the table. Or, under-table. Whatever. "Well, speaking of plays . . . I've found a new theatre class for you."

My eyes fly from the mug to Eric – well, to Eric's hand, resting on the table.

"This one is run by a community theatre," he continues, "which I know is questionable, but it is organized and taught by a retired stage actress evidently looking to . . . _give back_. She is from Louisiana, but she spent most of her career in Chicago. Her credits are quite extensive, and impressive. She was nominated for a Jeff Award in the nineties, actually."

I take another drink of coffee – is the mug trembling? I may be imagining that – and feel wetness in my mouth without really tasting anything.

Eric, after a moment, says, "The Jeff Awards honor excellence in Chicago theatre –"

"I know what the Jeff Awards are," I say sharply, too sharply, sharply enough for Eric's hand to tense. I lick my lips, draw in a breath, and start again. Cordially. "Thank you. But I don't want to take another theatre class."

"I thought you said you didn't like the first one because the teacher was inept."

"Yes."

"And now I've found a class with a teacher who seems quite capable."

"It wasn't _just_ the teacher. It was the kids, too. They were . . ."

 _Different from me. Fascinated by me. Frightened by me. Frightening_ to _me._

 _Normal._

". . . idiots."

"There will be different kids in this class."

"Yes, thank you, I realize that, but those kids will likely be idiots as well." _And fascinated and frightened and frightening and normal and different, different,_ different _from me._

"They'll almost certainly be idiots, dear, but you would be hard-pressed to find children your age who are not, by comparison, idiots. I've been telling you that for years. Nonetheless . . . it would be beneficial for you to spend time with them."

I smile. Smirk. I can't help it.

And Eric's next words come slower. More carefully. "I am well aware, Annika, that peer socialization is an area of your upbringing which I neglected to pay the proper attention. I have admitted that. I am trying to _amend_ that."

I'm not even spinning the mug, and my coffee is trembling. My hands are still around it. Maybe my heartbeat is the problem.

"You enjoy the theatre. And I think you would enjoy this class, perhaps quite a lot. I would like for you to consider it."

God, I _hate_ it when he makes comments like that, comments that aren't technically orders but which _certainly_ aren't requests. I finally look straight at him, lifting my chin to do so, because holding your head like that makes you seem more sure of yourself, and people are more likely to take you seriously if you're sure of yourself. Unless, of course, they think they know you _better_ than you know yourself, which . . . just sucks. "I appreciate your efforts. But I am no longer interested in taking a theatre class."

Eric's face sort of tightens. The muscles around his lips, especially, seem to constrict, though you might not be able to notice if you didn't know him. The air between us is beginning to feel different, in a way that reminds me of static electricity. Irritation. Eric's. Oh, but no, no – _irritation_ isn't really right, is it? No, it's . . . _frustration_. That's closer, anyway. "What would you be interested in, then? What . . . group activity?"

I shrug.

"Annika, I am trying to give you something you want. Help me."

Now . . . in theory, I could explain to Eric that spending time with people my own age is no longer something I want. But I can't really do that. For starters, it isn't totally true. I _do_ want to spend time with people my own age, if I can understand them. The problem is that I've concluded I can't. Between my time in Bon Temps and my time in the first theatre class and my time sitting alone in my room gathering information from books and articles and movies, it's become clear to me that I simply don't _get_ people my own age, and, what's more, that I probably never will. I've researched it: People learn how to be around people by being around people from an early age. _Socializing_ from an early age. With their peers.

I've never had a peer.

I was never allowed that.

There would simply be no point telling Eric any of this, because, after all, he read multiple parenting books before and after purchasing me. He knows, he has _always_ known, that children are supposed to interact with other children, but still he _neglected to pay_ _the proper attention_ to that particular need of mine, and now here we are, and he wants to _amend_ things so I'll be all nice and simple for him again, but he _can't_ amend things, because things are too wrecked for that, it's too _late_ for that.

No, there's no point in my telling Eric any of this, any part of this, no point in trying to explain _anything_ to him. Not because he'd tell me I'm wrong. Because he already knows.

And, also? I don't fucking want to.

What I tell Eric, eventually, is, "I'll think about it and get back to you." Then I drink my coffee, and he watches me drink my coffee, and there's silence. Just at our table. The room buzzes around us, and we're quiet.

Until Eric folds his hands and says, "I have a proposition for you."

 _Oh, thank God._ I was beginning to think he'd brought me here just to talk about the stupid theatre class, but no, there _is_ actually something that might actually matter, and he's finally getting to it, and maybe that means we're done with useless, empty, painful conversation. For tonight.

Eric's eyes flicker around above my head, double-checking the place, before landing back on mine. "What has Pam told you about Sookie? About her return?"

I got Pam to update me in Eric's office last night, when I knew he was out. "Sookie says she was away doing work for Bill Compton. You don't believe her."

"No, I don't. Her simply being _away_ doesn't explain why neither you nor I could sense anything from her for an entire year. And we were both around Bill shortly after Sookie disappeared. It's possible he could have deceived me, but you would have sensed if his distress was ingenuine, right?"

I pull the mug closer to me, feel its fading warmth against my chest. Eric's talking about the night he found out Sookie was gone, when he took me to her house in hopes of my sensing something useful. I couldn't, though, and . . . it wasn't a pleasant night.

Bill Compton showing up did nothing to help that, partly – not entirely, but partly – because of what he was feeling. What he was _genuinely_ feeling. "No. I mean, yes, I would have sensed it. Or – I wouldn't have sensed what I _did_ sense. Bill wasn't faking anything. He was distressed."

"Mm. Then he didn't know where she was then, and he's lying now. Presumably at Sookie's request. Which raises the question . . ." Eric lowers to a whisper. "What has Miss Stackhouse been doing all this time that she doesn't want the world, or _me_ , to know about?" He bobs his head an inch to the side. "I'm quite interested in the answer to that."

So am I, because Sookie was my friend before, and because I'm curious, but I still ask "Why?" because Eric is a much, much different person than I am.

"I'm curious."

Not _totally_ different, admittedly. "Why else?"

"Why do you think there's something else?"

"Because there always is."

"Not always." He studies me for what seems like a long, uncomfortable time. "Information is valuable. And powerful. The more I know about Sookie, the better."

"Is Sookie yours now?"

"Not yet."

"What does that mean?"

"She is resistant to the idea at present, but I am confident that, in time, she'll agree to it."

"Humans don't have to agree." My voice turns cool here. _Particularly_ cool – cold, in fact, cold enough to freeze the conversation.

If only for a few seconds. "I would prefer she did."

I pop my eyebrows. Lift the mug to my mouth. "That's considerate of you."

"Annika . . ."

"What?" I blink at him over the mug's rim. "I'm just saying, it's considerate." I take my sip, ignoring his glare, then gaze over at the barista and busy myself with further thoughts on gender identity until Eric speaks again.

"I want you to move in with her."

And my attention is all his again. "I'm sorry?"

"I want you to move in with Sookie."

I stare at him. He stares back at me, steadily, and doesn't amend himself, the way I expect, the way I think he _must,_ because how could what he's just said actually be what he wants to happen? _Move in with Sookie?_ With Sookie, in Bon Temps, the town I assumed Eric would keep me out of for the rest of eternity on principle alone? He wants me to go _live_ there now?

The word _Why?_ halfway-forms on my tongue, but I kill it before it can leave, because I try not to ask Eric questions I can answer on my own. I can do that with this one, I think. I just have to consider how my living with Sookie could benefit _him_.

Once I start from that point, it doesn't take me long to understand. Not even five seconds. "You want me to spy on Sookie."

Something glimmers in Eric's eyes, and I brace myself against that same sort of tiny, instinctive rush of affection I felt in the library parking garage. "I want you to . . . keep an eye on her."

"How is that different from spying?"

"It sounds better." He gives me the kind of half-smile you might give to someone who's in on your secret plan – a _co-conspirator_ – and I have to put more effort into stuffing down the damn instinctive-affection-surge. I don't smile back, at least, not halfway or more. I'm not sure I'm in on this plan yet.

Well, I'm not sure I'm in on it _willingly_.

"I want to find out where she's been," Eric says, "what she's been doing, why you and I couldn't sense her. Your abilities could prove useful in this. What's more, Sookie likes you. She asked about you the other night. It was the only thing she said to me that was completely without . . . exasperation."

"She's still angry at you for what happened with Edgington." I start that sentence intending for it to be a question, but by the time I reach the end, I realize it doesn't have to be. Of course Sookie is still angry. The last time she saw Eric, he pinned her to a table and drank her blood while she screamed. Doing so was part of a plan, yes, Eric was working to destroy Russell Edgington, and he eventually succeeded (more or less), which wouldn't have happened if he hadn't done what he did to Sookie, _and_ that all occurred a year ago, but . . . he pinned her to a table and drank her blood while she screamed.

"Yes, she seems to find that a difficult thing to move past," Eric acknowledges, the same way he might acknowledge a small flaw in something he was trying to sell. "But she will. And I believe I could aid the process, given the opportunity. That would be another benefit of you being at her house. I would have a good reason to visit."

"You _own_ her house."

"A _better_ reason. In Sookie's eyes." Eric hesitates, and – I don't know if it's a psychic thing or not – I feel the energy of the conversation shift. His tone softens, if you want further evidence. "It would also be good for you to spend some time away from the club. That was why I started sending you to Bon Temps in the first place, if you'll remember. That arrangement . . . did not go so well as I'd hoped. But I am ready to let you try again."

Naturally, Eric says this in the manner of someone demonstrating great generosity, someone who _hasn't_ spent the last minute spelling out the ways my living with Sookie could work to his advantage.

"You'd still come to Shreveport for your tennis lessons," he continues, "and for whatever new activity I – we select for you. I had Wi-Fi installed at Sookie's house, so your meetings with your tutors would go unaffected, as long as you packed your webcam. Oh, and I left a message for a new therapist. Once her office gets back to me, I'm sure we will be able to find a schedule that works for her as well as us." Another hesitation – another shift, even? "And it goes without saying that your bedroom at the club would be available to you anytime you wanted it."

My coffee is over three-fourths gone. I take a drink – it's too cool now, too – and almost start spinning the mug again, but decide instead to tilt it around on its base. I can't keep the coffee from trembling. Might as well make it swirl.

Eric says, "This would not be a permanent arrangement. Indefinite, perhaps, but . . . I am not making Bon Temps your home."

"Good to know," I mutter.

"What was that?" Eric asks in a tone that indicates he heard me perfectly well.

I bring the base of the mug back to the table. The coffee splashes up to try and escape, but it doesn't even come close. "Will I be allowed to go places?"

Eric inclines his head, just a centimeter. "What places?"

"Places. Stores, restaurants, whatever."

"How many stores and restaurants can Bon Temps have?"

"Some."

He props his elbows on the table and presses his fingers together, spreading them out while his palms stay separated, and I have the dim, quick urge to hold my hands the same way. I would do that sometimes, when I was little – mimic his movements, when they struck me. I'd forgotten that. "If Sookie knows where's you're going," Eric says.

"In the daytime?"

He might swallow. I think I see his neck move. If I'm right, I'm not sure what it means. "If Sookie is with you."

"You don't like me going out in the daytime because you're worried someone might try to take me, right? Someone hired by vampires to kidnap me while you're sleeping?"

"That's one possibility."

"If anyone like that comes after me, what's Sookie going to be able to do to stop them? She'd probably only be killed. Or she might be taken, too – Vampires will want her because she's a – because of what she is, right?" Vampires like telepaths and, it turns out, like fairy blood even more.

"Once word gets out, but –"

"Then there's also the possibility ofsomeone coming _just_ for her, and if that happens and I'm _with_ her, they might hurt me or take me, too. Or –"

" _Alright."_ Eric closes his eyes for a fraction of a second too long for me to call it a blink. "You don't have to have Sookie with you, but you may not be anywhere alone. You may go to public, busy places. Not places so busy that they are chaotic."

"I can spend time with other people? Other kids?" To be clear, I realize this is a strange thing to ask about, what with my being resigned to a probable fate as a social outcast. But it's the principle of the thing.

"I just told you I want you to spend time with other kids." We've reached the point of the conversation where Eric starts to sound very tired. He parts his hands, letting one fall to the table, where it rests with half-curled fingers.

"Even the kids from last summer?"

"Oh, the kids with whom you were corralled by the police?"

"Yes, them."

"You haven't spoken to those people in months."

"I might have, if all the contacts in my phone hadn't been deleted."

His half-curled fingers twitch towards his palm. "I do not want you anywhere, with any kids, without adult supervision."

"Any adult?"

"Any adult Sookie knows and approves of."

And now I'm out of questions. I just straighten my back and try to look like someone calmly pondering her new situation. Well, to _be_ someone calmly pondering her situation. The _calmly_ part is the only thing that's difficult.

This is no small thing. What Eric is doing here.

 _What Eric is_ allowing _here_.

No, it's no small thing, no small thing at _all._ Eric is letting be away from the club. Letting me be away from _him_.Letting me _go_ _places_ , and even – if I ever were to want it – be with people, people he doesn't know! He hasn't given me freedom like this since Europe, and even there, he or Kristoffer Hagen were almost always with me, and if not, they were close by. In Bon Temps, I'd get to be out somewhere alone, sort of, except for strangers, which is close enough to being alone.

"I am extending you a great deal of liberty, Annika," Eric says, as if I don't realize that. "More than I am comfortable with. I am doing so for your sake, but –"

I don't think. "You're doing it so I can spy on Sookie."

Having, as I mentioned, passed the point in the conversation where Eric starts to sound very tired, it's in my best interest to be extra careful about what I say. I've not been doing that so well, and therefore I really shouldn't be as surprised as I am when Eric snarls – in a quiet, draw-no-attention way – "Do _not_ interrupt me, girl."

I exhale, then draw the breath all back in and tilt my head, waiting.

Once again, Eric closes his eyes for just a little too long, and when he opens them and starts talking, he's back to sounding mostly tired. Though not totally that. "If my sole agenda was gathering information on Sookie, allowing you such freedom with how and where you spend your time in Bon Temps would be a rather counterproductive measure, wouldn't it?"

I say nothing. It would, he's absolutely right, and some small part of me – no, a _major_ part – understands that Eric, regardless of his original motive for deciding I should live in Bon Temps, is granting me privileges that he does not, as far as I can tell, directly gain from. Privileges that are not easy for him to grant. Privileges I should be grateful for.

And really . . . it's not even that I'm not grateful. It's that I can't stand being grateful towards him.

Eric lets his gaze drift off, shaking his head a little. "Your wellbeing is as much a motive in this as hers."

Truly, I can't stand it.

"What about your wellbeing? Is it as much a motive as that?"

I could have gotten away with that comment three minutes ago.

Before I know what's happening, Eric has snatched the mug from my hands and brought it down – _thwack!_ – to my left, and in the same instant he snakes his left hand forward to grip the edge of the table to my right. Trapping me. I don't even try to hold his glare. I'd only break away from it. I hate that, I hope I won't always, but it's true right now, so I just stare at Eric's chest while he hovers over me like a gargoyle.

Stare at Eric's necklace, actually. He's wearing the one with the eagle talon, it dangles between us, and something about it, about _this_ , feels familiar. In a bizarre way. Like diving into the Arctic Ocean and remembering a time you had ice water. No, not ice water. More pleasant than that. Ice cream. Gelato.

Eric says, "I have somewhere to be." And he rises.

The door is behind me, and when Eric passes me by – I haven't stood, not yet – I sneak a glimpse at his face, though I don't mean to. It doesn't matter. He's not looking at me. His expression is mild. Relaxed, even. The expression of a man going about his evening.

The attention of strangers has settled on me, a thin layer of scratchy fabric. I could reach for my coffee. Take another drink, act like nothing's happened. Eric would have to choose between keeping a low profile and making a scene for the sake of his point. His instinct would be the latter. And then what happens?

 _Everyone here sees a vampire drag a little girl from her seat. Someone pulls out their phone to record it. Maybe a security camera catches the whole thing. The footage finds its way to national news, international news. Witnesses give interviews detailing the incident, detailing their horror. The AVL scrambles to deal with the mess._

 _One night, the police come for Eric._

I've gotten to my feet before my brain reaches "national news." I probably didn't have to. Eric can imagine all of those possibilities at least as well as I can, and I very much doubt he'd risk making them reality, no matter how pissed he is at me. But I won't risk making them reality, either. Nan Flanagan wanted Eric's statement for a reason. Anti-vampire sentiment is the highest it's been in the United States since right after the Great Revelation, I've read multiple articles confirming that fact. Politicians are running on anti-fang policies, _HUMANS ONLY_ signs are going up in store windows, and vampire-run businesses are constantly targeted by idiots with no lives or brains. Protesters show up at Fangtasia all the time these days, waving signs, chanting, finding increasingly ridiculous rhymes and puns for every vampire-related term they can think of. It's not a good time for vampires. I don't want to make it worse.

 _And you don't want the police to come for Eric._

Well . . .

No. I don't. I can't even pretend I want that.

Eric stopped when he realized I wasn't following, and even though I'm coming now, he doesn't move, and seeing him there, I know if the police ever came for him, I would scream and try to throw things at them with my mind, and fight with my bare hands if I had to, and beg if I had to, but right now, I stomp past Eric like he doesn't exist, because even though I can't help but love him I really, really wish I could, because I also can't help but be so goddamn angry at him, and he _deserves_ for me to be angry at him, and maybe it wouldn't be so hard if the anger was all there was, if I didn't have a battle happening inside of me, all the time, every day, _constantly_ , it's so hard, it's so hard, it's _exhausting_.

I shove through the door and feel the strangers' minds slide away from me. I swipe both hands over my eyes because they're watery, and I'm looking at the mascara smudges on my fingers when Eric comes up beside me, but he's ahead of me just as quickly. He walks to his car. I do, too, but behind him. Far behind him. He doesn't slow his strides so I can keep up.


	9. Sitting Here, Still

**July**

Steam follows me when I finally come out of the bathroom, wet hair soaking the back of my silk pajama top, my stupid little smoke-scented outfit bundled under my arm.

Eric is sitting on my bed.

I stop. The door swings away from me. It goes as far as it can go and then creeps back towards me, silently, while Eric and I stare at each other. His elbows are on his knees. The bags under his eyes are heavy. The door taps against my arm, but I don't move, and it drifts away again.

Eric tilts his head at the mattress. "Sit."

I let out a breath, and though I try to control it, it comes out all shaky anyway. I step forward, one bare foot and then the other burying themselves in my new shaggy white rug. Then I stop. "May I put my clothes away?"

"Yes."

I cross the room to my closet, push open the door, and drop the bundle in the hamper. I slide the door closed, too slowly, too loudly, and turn around, reminding myself to breathe. I'm still not doing so very smoothly. I walk to the bed. My heart beats everywhere in my body. Eric can hear it, I know. It's hard to believe he can hear anything else. I barely can.

Eric is on the edge of the very middle of the bed. I sit on the end, just out of arm's length, I think. A pointless, trivial distance, but it's the best I can do.

I wait for him to start. While I wait, I wonder what it was his father used to beat him, at my age, until he bled. What tool, I mean. A belt or a stick or a whip or just his fists or something else I'm not thinking of. And I think about the man I saw in a vision once, who wore a crown that his son would risk everything to reclaim a thousand years later, and how that man looked so warmly at that son as they sat around a wooden table with their family, enjoying their normal, ancient human lives. I wouldn't have thought he was the sort of man to beat his child until he bled, but, of course, he lived a thousand years ago, and the rules were different then. The ideas of right and wrong were different then – that's what Eric told me once, years ago, before I came to Shreveport. He'd found me in the library of the farmhouse reading a book about Vikings, and I asked him what the word _rape_ meant. He put the book back on its shelf, then, and we spoke for a while. Eric explained that what is and isn't considered good can change over time, even from circumstance to circumstance. He said I'd find it easier to understand when I was older. He smiled and made me giggle until I wasn't nervous anymore. Then he took me to the kitchen and gave me a cookie.

I don't think he ever answered the question about rape.

It's been quiet for some time now. Except for my heartbeat. _Thump. Thump. Thump._ All through my body. Like drums at a ceremony.

Finally, finally, finally –

"Did I hurt your neck?"

Eric doesn't look at me when he says this. His head is pointed straight forward. I think so, anyway – I can only kind of see him, because my head is pointed at the floor.

"No," I say.

"Would you tell me if I had?"

"Yes."

He sighs. We sit. _Thump. Thump. Thump._

"You are going to tell me what happened in France."

 _Thump. Thump. THUMP._

"You'll note I am not asking," Eric continues as blood rushes to my neck and cheeks. "As I said before – I am done being patient. I feel I have to be."

Panic squirms in my chest, trying to reach out to the rest of me. _Breathe,_ says a calmer part of me, a part that lives in my mind, not my heart or gut or any of my less-logical areas. _He can feel what you're feeling, goddamn it, breathe._ "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes, you do." Eric starts this sentence before I've finished mine. "Those two weeks you spent in Paris without me, when I was here for business. I returned, and something had changed with you. In you. And between us." Does he glance at me? Am I imagining it? I feel dizzy, I think, and I breathe some more. "I want to know why," Eric says. "Tell me."

I move my tongue around my mouth and swallow. "Eric, nothing happened in –"

"Stop _lying!"_

He's on his feet now, towering over me. I keep my eyes on the floor because that's the only thing that makes sense.

"I know something happened! Whether it was an actual event, something that spurred some new line of thought in your mind, or simply a personal revelation – _something_ happened!"

And, in spite of his towering and loud volume, a tiny something in my chest relaxes. _Something happened._ Something. Eric's narrowed things down to France, but that's as far as he's gotten. He doesn't know about Jack.

 _Yet._

 _Breathe._

"A person doesn't undergo a complete personality change for no reason at all! Adolescent bouts of rebellion do not last months with no reprieve! Something happened, and you are going to explain it to me, _now_ , or I –"

Eric stops as if interrupted, though I've said nothing, done nothing, aside from stare at the floor and breathe and vibrate with the _THUMP, THUMP, THUMP_ of my heart _._ I wish he'd keep going, honestly. I'd rather know what sort of punishment I'm facing than let my imagination try to figure it out. I have a good imagination. Too good for moments like these.

But Eric takes a step back. Then he turns away, and I hear, barely, "I don't want to do this."

My gaze can't help but creep up to his back as he walks – not purposefully, not like him – to the armchair in the corner, a simple white thing with wooden legs, new, like most things in this room. It has an ottoman to match and a little blue pillow, a _throw_ pillow, it's called, that Eric picks up as he lowers into the chair. He stretches one leg out, maybe considers the ottoman, but ultimately leaves his feet down.

I realize, for the first time, that he left his shoes at the door.

 _Thump, thump, thump._ _Thump. Thump. Thump._

"I've always found something quite calming about the sound of your heartbeat," Eric says, eventually, and as if answering my heart directly. I guess he sort of is. He looks down at the throw pillow, still in his hand, and after a moment places it on the floor and settles into the chair, arms covering the armrests, hands dangling off. "When you were small, every morning I could, after you were asleep and just before I went to ground, I would stand outside your bedroom door and listen to your heart beating. Sometimes I would come just after your nanny had put you to bed, or I would put you to bed myself, and then I could actually hear you _fall_ asleep. Hear your heart slow to that particular, steady pace – strong, certain, but so . . . easy. Before you, I'd only ever paid attention to racing hearts. I didn't know how pleasant it could be, listening to one so at peace."

He catches my eyes on him, where I don't remember allowing them to go. I drop them back to the floor. _Thump. Thump. Thump,_ goes my heart, maybe a bit slower than it was a minute ago, but certainly not at peace.

"I don't like hearing your heart beating like this, Annika. Hearing it _pounding_ . . . certainly not when I know I am the cause. I don't want you to fear me. I never have. Fear is a tool I use to deal with the rest of the world. Not with you."

This time, I catch _his_ eyes on _me_ , although I guess it's not _catching_ them if he doesn't mind my noticing, and he doesn't look away, and neither do I, because even when our relationship was good it was rare to see Eric's eyes as soft as they are now, as open as they are now, and in this moment the idea of looking away from his eyes is the the only thing that hurts worse than looking into them.

"Not if I have a choice," Eric says, and I I blink. "I'm no longer sure that I do."

I turn back to the floor. Let it hurt.

Eric rises, and I tense all over as he returns to the bed and sits closer to me than he was the first time. He doesn't look straight ahead like before. He angles his entire body towards me and levels his head with mine.

"You are angry with me," he says. "You have been angry with me since before we came back to Shreveport, and I do not know why. You are _hurting_ –" His teeth clench as he says this, I'm almost sure – "and I do not know why. I am not your enemy, Annika. Why you would view me as such, I don't know, but I want to understand, I _need_ to. So I can help you. So I can keep you safe. So I can prevent the sort of thing that happened tonight from happening again, without . . ."

His voice fades, and my hands wring in my lap, slowly, almost like they're massaging one another. Somewhat painfully.

"I am not your enemy," Eric repeats, finally. "Please don't make me act like it."

My hands wring. _I_ wring my hands. It's comforting, the somewhat-pain, the pressure. Making myself feel what I want. In this one area.

Eric shifts and his hand covers both of mine. Its weight makes them go still, makes _me_ go still. "Annika," he says, and there's a lot of meaning in the word, but I don't know what it is, really. I just know it puts a lump in my throat. I know it keeps me from pulling my hands away, even though most of me is certain that's what I should do. Eric just threatened me, _again_ , I know that, I know that, but nothing with Eric is simple, is the thing. Nothing with Eric is simple. And the threat wasn't just a threat. It was a request. A genuine one. I think.

And I like the weight of his hand on me. I always have. Even now.

"Just talk to me," my guardian says. "The way you used to find so easy." He pauses, then takes his hand from mine – my hands feel colder without his there, even though that's nonsensical – and reaches up, slowly, to brush back some strands of my hair that hang between us and tuck them behind my ear. "I miss you talking to me," he murmurs as he does so, and then, as his hand falls away, "I miss you."

I close my eyes. Squeeze them closed. The lump in my throat pounds with my heartbeat. In fact, it's where I can feel it the most. The lump just wants to break out, is all. It wants free. My heart wants it to be free, too.

"Annie. Tell me what happened in France."

And the truth is – I think, though my head is wild with my own feelings – the truth is, before he says this, before he tells me this second time to tell him what happened in France . . . I was probably going to. Because of the softness of his voice, and the weight of his hand, and the genuine request-threat, and his being Eric, and me being Annika, and my being so tired and lonely and wanting him, wanting him, wanting him like I always have, wanting him to hold me and protect me and be Eric, my Eric. I was probably going to tell him what happened in France. I'm not sure I could have stopped myself.

But he asks me this second time. And I don't even know what it is about him doing that. Maybe it reminds me he has an agenda. Maybe it makes me remember that there is a world outside my bedroom with people Eric could hurt.

But probably . . . probably, more than anything else . . . it's that he calls me _Annie._ He told me once that he doesn't call me that to manipulate me, even though he knows I like it, but in this moment, hearing him say it, as much as he's a master of lying, as much as the silly child in me wants to believe him – something goes wrong. For him, for me, for the moment. Because I'm a psychic, or just because I'm smart, or because of some combination of the two, or because of other things entirely – I know it's not true. I know he sometimes calls me that to manipulate me.

And, really, I've always known.

And he's trying to do it now.

Of course he is.

I open my eyes. I swallow the lump in my throat. It hurts, it's hard, but I do it, and:

"Nothing happened in France."

Eric stares at me. I feel it, I see it from the corner of my eye. He stares at me, and then he leans back, straightens up, and stares some more. I hold my hands in a tight, bloodless bundle and stare at them.

Eric rises. Walks across the room. Stands facing the wall for some time, head tilted down, arms at his sides, and though his hands aren't in fists, his fingers look like they had just started rolling up to his palm when they were suddenly frozen. They're practically claws.

And my heart, oh, my poor heart . . . _Thump, thump, thump, THUMP . ._. It knows this won't end well for me.

 _Jack,_ I think, or maybe I tell my heart. _Jack Jack Jack Jack. I have to protect him._

 _And also, Eric called me_ Annie.

When Eric speaks, it isn't a growl, but it's something like a growl that's subtler but darker and worse.

"Fine."

He whirls around and strides back to the bed with a black expression on his face, an expression that only villains in storybooks are supposed to wear, an expression that strikes my heart with such force that the _THUMP, THUMP, THUMP_ stops, every sound stops, everything but Eric stops until he's a step away and a muscle in my leg twitches or jerks or does something and I'm sliding to the floor, then I'm on the floor, curled against the bed with my knees drawn in and my eyes shut and one hand over my head and one hand over my mouth, stuffing back the whimper sliding out, not very well, and, oh, here it is, the _THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP._

None of it protects me. None of it does any good.

Or it shouldn't, anyway.

But I wait for it to start, for something terrible to start, and it never does.

I open my eyes and blink away the blurriness – blink _out_ the blurriness, tears spill over – and see Eric's feet, Eric's feet without his shoes, right in front of me, pointed at me, not moving. Not moving and not moving and not moving, until they are, one of them, just inches closer, and then there's pressure beneath my arm, and more sounds coming from behind my hand as I'm lifted from the ground – and placed back on the bed. The pressure beneath my arm goes away, and Eric steps back. Away from me. To the table in the corner. He picks something up. My laptop.

"If you won't talk to me, you can talk to a therapist," I hear him say, though it's like an echo. "I will call Dr. Ludwig tomorrow for her recommendations."

He turns back to me – my hands have come down from my head now, one is wrapped across my stomach, one is sort of floating over my chest – with an utterly blank expression. Not one like a storybook villain would have. No one that blank ever shows up in a storybook, not a good storybook. "Where is your phone?"

I don't think I remember, but then my arm is pointing to the coat rack by my door, to the beautiful wool coat Eric bought me, and Eric goes to the coat and digs in its pockets, and I think about the word _therapist,_ and then, when Eric has pulled out my phone as well as my cigarettes, something that's louder than a croak but similar to it nonetheless comes out of me.

"You think I'm losing my mind, then?"

Eric sort of flings the end of the coat away from him, and the blank look gives way for something louder as he snaps, "No, I think you won't _talk to me!"_

I press my hand against my throat so no more similar-to-croaks come out.

Eric, after a moment, holds up my laptop and phone. "I am taking these for a month. You will not be leaving the club for the same amount of time. And in case there is any doubt," he adds as he goes for the door like it's done something wrong, "your relationship with the town of Bon Temps has come to an end."

He throws the door open and disappears from the room. The slam of the door – Eric rarely slams doors – reminds me of an axe hitting a stump.

It takes me a long time to return to the floor, because Eric didn't seem to want me to be there and I don't want to do something wrong, not now, I just don't. But I sit on the floor when I'm upset, it's what I do, so when it finally feels safe enough I start to lower down again, only I have to stop halfway there to run to the bathroom, throw back the toilet seat, and vomit.

. . . . .

. . . . .

. . . . .

 **Present Day**

The engine of Eric's car growls as he passes one car, then another. Their headlights slide across the dashboard as he overtakes them. It's the only sound in the car, the growling. Suitable, I suppose.

My purse is at my feet. I keep poking it with my toe, even though Eric could hear the crinkling of the plastic-wrapped food inside if I poke too hard. I like feeling the bulge of the food. I almost never eat food like this until after dawn, when Eric and Pam are asleep, but I think I might make an exception tonight. I could lock myself in the bathroom to do it. If Eric or Pam came to my bedroom door, I'd simply leave the food for a minute and let them in, talk about whatever they want to talk about, and then they'd probably leave without suspecting a thing. What a weird thing to suspect, after all. And Eric said he had someplace to be, and he probably would have said if that someplace was the club, so I doubt he'll even be around tonight. Perfect. I can eat, and then I can get the bad stuff out of me. All the bad stuff. Actually, I might consider eating food like this at earlier-than-dawn more often. Maybe I'll feel better than usual for the rest of the night. I'll see, I guess.

Someplace to be. No, that's probably not the club. I'd ask him, maybe, as casually as I could, but we've had all the conversation we're going to have tonight.

Or so I think. But then, a few minutes after we leave the café, Eric speaks. The words seem to burst from him, though they're not loud.

"I am trying, Annika. I am trying to give you what you need, I am trying to _be_ what you need. I am the only one of us who _is_ trying, but still, I am, I am _trying_."

I stare at my purse. Then I stare out the window.

Eric's next words don't burst so much as leak out. "But it has been so many months now. And I grow so tired."

I can't tell if that heavy note to his voice, that sort of sigh inside the words, is exhaustion or something else. Something more final than that.

It sounds like it could be something more final than that.

And if so, I don't know what that means.

I stare out the window, and I poke my purse with my toe.

Eric sighs. The car growls louder. The headlights of another car flash across the dashboard. Everything keeps going, the world moves around us, but we stay in this one place, Eric and I. Cars don't really work like that, of course, obviously, but that's how it feels, if you look at it a certain way. And that's the only way I can see things right now. With the world moving, with everything in the world moving, and Eric and I sitting here, still. And silent.

I wish I could tell him I'm tired, too.


	10. The Man on the Porch

"Get down," Eric says as we near the club. I'm already shrugging my seatbelt off. At this point, I know what to do when there are signs bobbing around in front of Fangtasia. The windows of Eric's car are tinted, but not so much that the small blonde in the passenger seat would go unnoticed. One blurry photo and some anti-vampire speculation could lead to bad things for Eric, Fangtasia, and me.

So I slide to the floorboard and watch the sky twist as Eric pulls into the club.

" _Steve Newlin's right! You're devils of the night!"_

Eric says this is all temporary. That anti-vampire sentiment will calm down soon and things will return to normal. But he's been saying that for about a year now, and things have only gotten worse.

The chanting fades as Eric drives us around back. I push myself up into the seat again, pulling my bag into my lap. "Pack a suitcase for Sookie's," Eric says as he puts the car in park. "I'm taking you there tomorrow or the next night."

I jump out, shutting the door behind me in a very firm way – which is different from slamming it – and I'm halfway to the door when Eric calls my name. He's still standing by the car. He's leaving immediately, I suppose, to be wherever it is he has to be. He hesitates. Or maybe just pauses. The two things are different, if you think about it. I don't know if it matters.

" _Steve Newlin's right!"_ comes the muffled chant. _"You're devils of the night!"_

I feel something. A twinge, as if there's a hook inside of me, a hook on the end of a string that leads to Eric, and the string has just tightened – just _been_ tightened, like Eric tugged it, or something inside him did. But I don't know what it means, I don't know if it's a normal human feeling or an abnormal psychic one. And now Eric's is talking.

"Get an EpiPen from my desk. You need to keep one at Sookie's house."

I blink, and the string tugs at me again . . . then loosens. Maybe snaps off entirely. Either way, the twinge vanishes, leaving me with just anger and irritation and hurt. Once again.

 _"Steve Newlin's right!"_

Also, fear.

 _"You're devils of the night!"_

I nod at Eric to show I've heard him and will, like a good little human, obey his wishes. He inclines his head. I turn away without further ado. Inside, the club music welcomes me in, pulsing around me, pulsing through my feet. The human feelings pulse through me, too, or they try to – I push them all away, hard.

I feel Eric fly away.

The door to the office is closed. There's no light seeping out from under it, and Pam's not one to sit and work in the dark, so she must be out on the bar floor. Unless she's in the office with a human, that happens sometimes – but no, I listen for a minute, hear nothing. Like I said. She's probably out on the bar floor. Which is good. Better to have her further away, if I'm going to do the thing I do with junk food.

I shut my bedroom door behind me, pull off my shoes, go into the bathroom and shut _that_ door, and lock it, too, because I can do that with this one. I sit cross-legged on my bathmat, back against the tub, purse open beside me, and for the next fifteen or so minutes I rip open little bags of potato chips and tear away shiny candy bar wrappers, gobbling everything down like I'm afraid it might disappear. Because that's just the best way to do this sort of thing. Quickly. I don't know why.

Then all the food is eaten. I sit with it for a moment, my hand on my swollen, confused stomach. Full of food, full of feelings. It all blends together. Now I get to my feet, and I get my toothbrush, and I kneel in front of the toilet until it's all out of me. The food and the feelings. That's the beauty of throwing up. The emotions go out with the food. So it seems. I mean, they come back, but . . . they're gone for a bit. Gone, or shocked into silence, I don't know. It doesn't matter. It's just a relief, a temporary, lovely relief.

Okay – I'll get this out of the way now: I know this isn't something I'm supposed to do. I'm not an idiot. I know what _bulimia_ is, I know what all the other eating disorders are, too. That's not what's happening here. This isn't about losing weight, is the thing. I wouldn't mind gaining a little weight, actually, if I could gain it in certain places, because maybe it would make me look like less of a little girl. But I can't control where I gain weight, obviously, which why I just try to _maintain_ my weight. The average girl my age needs sixteen hundred calories a day. That's what I get. I keep a little notebook under my mattress to record my daily intake, just to be sure. But that's neither here nor there – The throwing up has nothing to do with what my body looks like. That's what I'm trying to say. The throwing up is all about the relief. The fucking _break_. Just for when things get too . . . whatever. Stressful. Enraging. Painful.

Also, it's undeniable that there's a bit of power in sneaking myself foods Eric doesn't want me eating. But, truly, that's mostly a means to an end. The vomiting is the good part. That's a weird thing to say, and it's a weird thing to do, I know. But that's all it is – a weird thing. A weird thing that makes me feel better than I did before.

Except that this time it doesn't.

This time, as I close the toilet seat, reaching for the handle, I'm swept away by dizziness. But it's not just in my head, the way dizziness usually is, the way dizziness is _supposed_ to be – It comes over my entire body, takes me over, takes me _under,_ that's what it feels like, and I fall over as I flush the toilet, off of my knees and into a sit, arm over the edge of the bathtub, then my other arm over it, too.

 _Something's wrong._

 _You threw up too much, or too hard, you hurt something –_

 _No, it's not that. It's something bigger than that. Something bigger than you . . ._

But now it's lifting, lifting away . . . And just like that, the dizziness is gone. Gone like a beach wave pulling back from your feet. My hold on the bathtub loosens. I feel better. I feel like I should. Empty, I mean. Hollow.

Except . . .

 _Something's still wrong._

Not wrong, though, it's not strong enough to be wrong, it's . . . off. Something's off.

Maybe. I mean, I'm not . . . certain.

 _When are you ever?_

I pull myself up to the edge of the tub, put my elbows on my knees for a minute to make sure the all-over dizziness is really gone. Then I go through my usual routine. I clean the toothbrush, stuff all of the junk-food trash into my wastebasket, take the little trash bag out of the wastebasket and knot it at the top. As I do this, everything inside of me is as to be expected – relaxed, a little tired. It's almost totally familiar, almost, almost, _almost_ –

 _Something's off._

 _You're sensing something,_ a part of me insists as I take the little trash bag to the storage room. _You need to tell Pam._

But the office is still dark. I could text Pam. I _could_ , if I was anything _like_ certain that what I'm feeling is worth telling. But my first thought might have been right. I might have just thrown up too much, and now I'm overreacting.

Or, you know. The complete opposite of that.

 _Something's off._

I return to my room, retrieve my purse from the bathroom and dig out my cell phone. I open it, find Pam's name, start typing a message that begins with _I might be,_ and then flip the phone closed, because there's no way to continue that message without sounding like a fool, and if I'm worried about sounding like a fool, then I must not be confident enough about what I'm feeling to bring it to Pam.

I walk from one side of my room to the other. Then I open the phone again. This time I find Eric's name and press _Call_.

I shouldn't be more comfortable calling Eric about this than Pam. Not these days. I don't know why I am. I wish I wasn't.

Four rings.

"This is Eric Northman. Leave a message."

Getting his voicemail isn't unusual. If he's in a meeting, he usually turns his phone off or on silent, so I shouldn't be worried.

 _If you hate him, you shouldn't be worried regardless. Don't you hate him, Annika? Isn't that how things are now?_

 _Beep._

"Hey." I keep my voice flat, the way you do when you have to talk to someone you hate. "I might be – I thought I was sensing something, a minute ago. Not something bad, exactly. I don't know. There's a good chance it's nothing. I just didn't want to . . . not say anything about it. Um . . ." _For God's sake, don't say_ um! "Call me when you can, so I know you're – so I know I wasn't sensing something going on with you."

I close the phone, and, in the same instant, feel a twinge inside of me. The same twinge from earlier, with Eric? The hook-and-line twinge? I rake a hand through my hair. I must be overthinking now. I must be . . .

 _Oh, the doubt never goes away,_ Joanie told me once, legs propped on her desk, the city of Paris lit up and spread out behind her like a backdrop on a news show. _It gets smaller, but it will always be there. You want it to be. Doubt keeps you in check._ Conviction _is what gets you killed . . . Gets somebody killed, anyway._

I don't know when I last felt _conviction_ concerning anything.

I slide my phone into my back pocket. I've done something, something appropriately mild, I think. Eric won't get upset with me for a false alarm, not even with our relationship like it is. At least, probably not. And I don't care anymore about impressing him, so I don't need to worry about him thinking less of me if I'm wrong, either. So, okay. I've done something. Okay.

I pull a suitcase from the closet – my hard-shell, gleaming black suitcase, the one I carried through Europe, the one with the scratches and dents I know so well and feel such a strange fondness for. I don't know what to pack for Sookie's, but my best guess is just an extended version of what I used to bring to Jessica and Hoyt's, so the suitcase fills up with denim and tee shirts, a few things to sleep in, yoga pants, my hair stuff, bath stuff, skin stuff, makeup stuff. My little portable jewelry box. My old blue pair of Converse, in case I get bored with the new black pair by the door. The spy-school book from the library, the books I have for my history, math, and science lessons, my Kindle, my phone charger, my iPod. My picture of the farmhouse. A mostly-full package of pads, two boxes of tampons – one unopened, one opened months ago and unused because beneath the tampons there's a cell phone with Jack's number programmed into it. _For emergencies,_ he said when he gave it to me, the last night we met. _Hide it well._

He didn't specify what would count as an emergency. I should have asked, but I didn't want to, because I knew it would probably lead to him describing Eric doing something awful. I didn't want to hear that. At that point, I was thinking about it more than enough.

As an afterthought, I add in a simple, pretty pair of wedges and the dress Eric bought me in New York City last year. For my birthday. Well, during my birthday trip. We went there for a long weekend. Eric isn't much for New York, but he thought I should see it, and he thought – knew – I'd love Broadway. We saw _Phantom of the Opera our_ second night Lloyd Webber . . . Yes, of course Eric knew I'd love Broadway.

And in the following nights, Eric took me through the city, to all of the famous and non-famous sights he felt were worth seeing, to fabulous restaurant after fabulous restaurant. One evening we went shopping, and he picked out this dress for me. It's the sort of dress you can wear anywhere – a _sundress_ , technically, but it seems like a joke to call it that, given my life. It's blue and sleeveless with a dipping neckline, tight around the torso, flaring out at the waist. I love it. Even now. How could I not? Eric has great taste.

God, that was an amazing trip. Eric couldn't have been planning, then, on us going to Europe, he wouldn't have done something so extravagant so soon before. Or maybe he would have. Did I really never ask him? He's no stranger to extravagance. Though you wouldn't guess that from the fact that the twelve-year-old in his care lives in the back of his nightclub, as opposed to, you know – an actual house.

I'm wringing my hands, standing over my suitcase and staring at the rolled-up dress like . . . I don't know. Like something that stares. Whatever . . . Do I want to take my record player? Yes. But I won't. It's portable, but still bulky, as is the rack holding my records. Better to pack lightly. I'll be back in Shreveport next week for my tennis lesson, I can come by – have Ginger bring me by – and get it then.

My EpiPen. Like Eric said. I have one in my purse, but he's right, I should have one wherever I'm living, too. Would I have thought to bring it if he hadn't reminded me?

Sticking my head into the hall tells me that the office door is still closed, Pam apparently still elsewhere, so I find my sad two-ring keyring at the bottom of my purse. Eric had all the locks changed last year, after Yvetta-the-dancer-and-traitorous-bitch ran off with a full set of keys (and all the money from the safe), and he had copies of the key for the club and the key for the office made for me. At the time, I loved him for it, because I felt like it meant he trusted me with more responsibility. I've thought about it more since then, however, so I realize it was essentially an empty gesture. I've never once needed the key to the club, because I'm rarely outside of it when it's closed and locked, and if I am, I'm with Eric or Pam or both. And the office was never really off-limits to me. So, yeah. Empty gesture. Empty, manipulative gesture. Eric's favorite kind.

I'll probably get a key to Sookie's. That'll make the keyring look less sad.

 _Unless Eric wants the key to the club back. Why not? He doesn't want you living here anymore._

That thought comes from nowhere, comes in viciously. It tears something, just a little, and I push the thought away. But the tear is still there. I still feel it.

But, like I said. It's little. I can forget it's there. I'll forget it's there.

I find the EpiPen – there are two of them, actually, though I only take one – in the top-right drawer of Eric's desk, the same place they've always been, the place he burned into my brain when I first came to Shreveport. I'm a couple strides from the doorway when Pam appears inside it, clad in the red, tight sort of dress most humans can't seem to look away from. She slides along the door, hand on the knob, and throws her thumb towards the hallway. "Out."

A human steps into a view as she says this. A man, which isn't her usual, though not _un_ usual either. He's good-looking, that's typical, with thick dark hair and stubble on his sharp-angled jaw. He inches back when he sees me. "Whoa. Uh . . ."

Pam, in response, grabs him with one hand and hauls him into the room, shoving him towards the couch, all without looking away from me. _"Out,"_ she repeats.

"Where does it look like I'm going, Pam?" I walk past her and, over my shoulder, call out, "You can do better."

"Yes, I could," Pam says, "but I didn't ask for your opinion."

I spin towards her, smirking. "I wasn't talking to _you_."

Pam's fangs snap down, and her eyes threaten murder, but all she does is slam the door in my face. She's busy, after all.

 _I wasn't talking to_ you _._ That was pretty good, I think. I wish I hadn't gotten it from a movie.

I hear the distant-but-shrill ring of the office phone as I walk away, followed by Pam's cry of "For _fuck's_ sake!" Back in my bedroom, I tuck my EpiPen in with my clothes, and I'm reaching to close the suitcase when I feel Pam leave Fangtasia.

Leave me.

My spine snaps straight. I stare at my bedroom door, like maybe it'll fly open and Pam will be there, playing a very un-Pamlike and probably impossible joke. The door doesn't fly open. No, Pam has left Fangtasia. And me. Suddenly. Without letting me know.

Something cold trickles down my back and pools in my stomach as I walk – calmly, I think – into the hall. The man Pam was with stumbles out of the office, his button-down shirt open. He looks up and down the hall, apparently disoriented. All he finds is me.

Pam would never leave a strange human to wander around back here.

"Where did Pam go?" I ask.

"I don't –" He throws his shoulders up, arms out. "I don't fuckin' know! Jesus, she just – fuckin' vanished! And she was just about to – Jesus _fuckin'_. . ." He glances back into the office, frustration – of all kinds – flickering from his body like flames. "I mean, she –" But here he turns back to me and, it seems, recognizes who he's talking to. Or, rather, recognizes her age. "Wait, who are you?"

"My mother works here." That's what Eric says I'm to say if a human I don't know ever sees me and asks questions. I've never had to say it before. I'm normally good about staying in the back during work hours. Just like Eric and Pam are normally good about not leaving me alone with no warning or explanation whatsoever.

 _Something's off._

 _Wrong. Something's wrong._

I step back, then change my mind and dart forward, into the office. The office has a lock, my bedroom doesn't. I'm not afraid, not really, not yet, but I'd prefer to be behind a locked door if I'm going to be at Fangtasia alone, which _apparently I am_. "See yourself out," I mutter to the stupid horny stranger as I shut the door. The lock slides smoothly into place for me.

I take out my cell phone and call Pam.

 _Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring._

"You've reached Pamela Swynford de Beaufort. Leave a message."

Her recording is almost exactly the same as Eric's. Every bit as impersonal. "Where did you go?" I say, stupidly. "Call me."

I call her one more time after that. Again, she doesn't answer. I don't leave a message this time. Instead I call Eric.

 _Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring . . . Ring._

"This is Eric Northman. Leave a message."

"Eric." My shoes squeak on the floor. "Pam just left the club. She got a call – I heard the phone ring, anyway, so – I'm pretty sure she got a call, and then she left. Um, she didn't say anything to me, she – just left. She was with someone, and he said she just vanished, she –" _You're rambling. And you said_ um _again._ "Call me."

I close the phone and hold it against my temple, turning on my heel to cross the room, turning on my heel to cross back, remembering what I felt earlier, after the binge. _Binge._ I hate that word. It's used for a lot of things, but especially for when people talk about eating disorders. But, technically, it _was_ a binge –

 _Focus._

But I'm not unfocused. I'm _too_ focused, on things I don't like. Contemplating the appropriate use of the word _binge_ is so much less frightening than those things.

I flip open my phone, check the time. What is it, seven minutes since Pam left? I text her.

 _ **Call me.**_

I text Eric.

 _ **Call me**_

I put a period on that text first, automatically, because I generally write grammatical text messages, but just as automatically I backspace it away, because Eric – a traditionalist in certain ways – gets annoyed by ungrammatical texts, and it's so much fun to annoy Eric, isn't it? Evil Eric, who I don't care about anymore?

 _Oh, shut up. It's bullshit, you know it's bullshit._

I text him again.

 _ **Has something happened?**_

I _don't_ text that, though, not exactly. I delete _**Has something**_ ,write _ **What's**_ in its place,and that's what I send. The question mark gets to stay, because, the fact is, ungrammatical texts annoy me, too. Also, my brain is moving too fast to dwell on little things like annoying Eric. It's just sort of bashing through little things like that.

I text Pam.

 _ **PAM.**_

Twelve minutes since she left.

 _Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's wrong._

That dizzy feeling. That damn dizzy feeling. It wasn't about vomiting, it wasn't about my body, it was about something else entirely, something separate from me, _bigger_ than me –

 _And you knew that. You knew it. But all you did was call Eric,_ once _. Well done._

 _I didn't know it! I didn't, I still don't!_

Oh, but is that true?

 _Is that true?_

I call Eric three more times. Pam three more times. Eric twice again. "Eric," I say after the beep I hear that last time. Then I hang up, because I don't trust any of the things I almost say to come out without growing or breaking into other things entirely.

Twenty-one minutes after she left, Pam returns to Fangtasia. I sense this only the slightest moment before the doorknob jerks. "Annika!" comes her voice, followed by two thumps that rattle the door. "Open this, I don't have my fucking key!" I'm already turning the lock by then.

"Pam," I say as I tug the door open, "what's going –"

She throws the door all the way open and grabs my shoulder, taking a handful of my shirt. "Change of plan." And now she pulls me into the hall, steers and drags me to my bedroom. "You're going to Sookie's tonight."

"What? Pam – _Let me go,_ hey!" I shove her off – she lets me shove her off – once we've entered my bedroom, its door left open, its lights still on. I'm not supposed to leave it like this.

Pam's iron-straightened hair is frizzy and tangled, a side effect of running the way she had to have been – at least when she _vanished_ from the club, as the human put it – but normally she would have at least run her hands through it once she had a minute. And smoothed her dress out – the pretty red fabric has bunched around her torso. Her shoes – strappy stilettos, such laughably not-for-running shoes – are scuffed all over . . . And her expression. Pam's face is set in a way that's _too_ set. Her lips are pursed, but her eyes are buzzing. They're the only piece of her face that's moving, and what's making them move moves my way, creepsinto me and over me, sends little shocks through my system. Pam's worried. She's angry. She's scared.

She nods at my suitcase. "Is that everything? Ginger's on her way. She's driving you."

"Ginger – ? Pam . . . What the hell is going on?" Then, quieter, unintentionally quieter, "Where's Eric?"

Pam's hard-set face twitches. She turns away, and her name is on my lips when I realize she's shutting the door, not going through it. "Something's happened," she tells me, and then she tells me a lot more.

. . . . .

I don't let Ginger come in with me to Sookie's house, because – well, because I don't want her to, but more to the point, because Pam told me to not let Ginger come in. Ginger asked about Eric on the ride over, and I told her he took me for coffee, took me to the club, and then went somewhere alone, I don't know where, and I say I don't know why he suddenly decided to send me to Bon Temps. Just like Pam told me to, I say all this. It's the official story, you see. Pam and I don't know where Eric is. That's the official story, that's the lie we have to tell.

I watch Ginger's headlights sink into the forest as she steers up the driveway to the road, leaving me in front of a mostly-dark, too-big-for-one-person house. With a new coat of paint. Courtesy of Eric.

My laptop bag and purse hang from one shoulder as I drag my suitcase across the gravel – wheels weren't made for gravel, if you didn't know – and use two hands and most of my muscles to pull the damn thing up the first porch step. In Europe, I always had someone to do the lifting for me. Usually Eric. But I'm managing on my own. The suitcase slides over the step's edge, rolls all the way onto it, and over my big toe.

 _"Ow –_ Damn it!" I press my hand flat against the suitcase, biting my lip. Four steps to go. Awesome.

"Annika?"

And for a second – a wonderful second – I think everything's actually okay, somehow, because that was Eric's voice. I follow it to the front door – there are two doors, actually, a screen door and a thicker door with a window, and the screen door is propped open and the thicker door is just shutting behind the so-familiar shape of Eric, my guardian, and as he steps forward and the porch light hits him – that's when the second ends. The everything's-actually-okay second. It ends, it crashes, it burns, as I really see him.

He's Eric, sure. Dressed comically, in a loose tee shirt and long baggy shorts, but Eric all the same. Right down to his eyes. Even in this light, you can see they're blue. I think you could tell no matter who you are, but _of course_ I can tell, because these are the eyes I know better than anyone else's. The eyes I've looked into a million times. The eyes that have looked _back_ at me a million times.

They're Eric's eyes. But they're empty somehow, in a way I've never seen. Something's missing. A lot of things are missing. Chief among them – at least in this moment, as far as I'm concerned – is Annika Northman. Because those eyes I know so well? They don't know me.

"That is your name, isn't it?" says the man on the porch.

Eric. Eric doesn't know me.


	11. Temporary

There's this thing called cognitive dissonance. Eric had me read an article on it just this year. Basically, it's when your mind believes two (or more, I think) things that contradict each other. It shouldn't be possible, but it is, and it's uncomfortable, because brains aren't good at dealing with stuff like that.

Once I'd read the article, Eric wanted to talk about it, like usual. We did so while taking an overnight ferry from England to France, sitting at a table by the railing as black water slushed far below us, and at one point he asked if I'd ever experienced cognitive dissonance. I couldn't think of a time, at least not that I was certain about.

But here it is. Here's the time I'm certain about. Because Eric obviously, blatantly, undeniably doesn't know who I am, and yet Eric _has_ to know who I am. That is a fundamental truth of my world, the base of everything else I know. And yet, and _yet,_ here he is, gazing at me with an uncertain sort of expression that can only mean, _You're a stranger and I don't know how to feel about you._ Somehow that is happening, obviously, blatantly, undeniably, and I can't make sense of it, not truly.

"Can you . . . speak?" he asks.

I swallow. Push through my deep-set sense of confusion. "Of course I can speak."

His eyes slide away, then back.

"Yes, that's my name," I say, and he turns his head just slightly to the side, like he wants to see me from a different angle. "Annika. That's what . . ." _That's what you named me. After your sister, your baby human sister._ And now – even though I know this is wrong and ridiculous – anger jabs my heart. Anger's not always practical, after all, and it's just – I mean, how could he forget that? His sister's name . . . Mine. How could he forget us both?

. . . . .

" _Pam, he's – Eric has a thousand years' worth of memories, they can't all just be gone –"_

 _"Well, they fucking are. I don't know how this backwoods voodoo-queen coven managed to do it, but they did. And when I find them, I'm gonna make them long for the days of Salem . . ."_

. . . . .

"That's my name," I repeat, too quietly. "Um . . ." A thought occurs to me, a thought I should have had thirty seconds ago. I readjust the strap of my laptop bag and glance out at the dark world around us. "You shouldn't be out here. You need to stay out-of-sight."

He looks over my head, at the yard, at the forest. Looks in a way that's . . . not fearless. Then he nods at my suitcase. "Do – Do you need help?"

He wouldn't ask, if he were himself. He'd just pick the suitcase up. He'd have picked it up before he said a word, probably, unless he teased me about it a bit, like he might, were he in the right mood. I mean, if we were like we used to be. And if he _did_ tease me, he damn sure wouldn't stutter. I can count on one hand how many times I've heard Eric stutter.

"Yes," I tell him. "Please." I take a step down, giving him space, and run my tongue around my mouth to try and find moisture. "Hurry. You need to be – "

 _Whoosh._ My heavy suitcase is nowhere to be seen, and the thick front door is slamming shut. A little crooked breath slips from me. "Inside," I whisper to no one, and walk up the steps.

Sookie's house wraps me up in warm light, warm air, and a dusty, woodsy smell I like, but I still feel like shivering as I stand in the foyer. Sookie's nowhere to be seen. _He_ stands between me and the living room, my suitcase at his side. Blinking at me. "Thank you," I say. I shrug my purse and laptop off my shoulder, but I don't know where I can put them, so I just pull them over my other shoulder. I bring my foot to my fingers, tug the shoelaces loose, then do the same for the other shoe. I step out of them both and nudge them towards the door. He watches me do this, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. When he checks the space behind him, so do I, though I just see the empty living room. A moment later, though, I hear a door shut somewhere else in the house.

He faces me again, and I make myself meet his gaze. Let him examine me further. "How . . . do I know you?" he asks, and my chest kind of cramps, but before I can figure out how to answer that, he narrows his eyes and murmurs, "Wait . . ."

So I do. Sort of. I don't talk, but I take the opportunity to stretch myself out to him, to try to dip into him, the way I so rarely do with Eric because I'm not supposed to. I get nothing for my efforts. I can't read a thing from him, not right now.

Oh, but . . . what if I can't read him at all, when he's like this? I can't read most old – _really_ old – vampires. I only can with Eric, _sometimes_ , because I know him so well. But that's when he's normal, when he's himself, with all the parts of himself. Maybe he's lost the parts that let me read him.

 _This is temporary. Pam will fix it. This is temporary._

 _And he's still Eric. He_ is. _He's_ _just – Eric without some things. He's different, but he's him, he's him, he's him, remember that._

"You've had my blood," he – _Eric,_ I owe it to him to remember that, damn it – Eric says, pulling me back into the room, even as _Oh,_ now _you owe Eric something?_ rings through my brain. His blood, he can tell I've had his blood. I exhale, forcing the breath out faster than it wants to go, and nod once. Okay, he can still feel me. _He_ can still feel _me_ , read me, in his way. That's something. No, that's something _big._ That's a good thing, a good sign.

"Are you mine?" Different Eric asks.

I nod again, but it feels childish to keep doing that, so I say, "Yeah." The instinct to add something along the lines of _Against my will_ stirs in my belly but goes back to sleep without a fight.

DifferentEric furrows his brow, does something like flinch, just in a tiny way. "Do I . . . _feed_ from you?"

And now I feel myself something-like-flinch, too. Or maybe I just flinch all the way. _"No."_

"Then . . . why . . . ?"

"Annika?"

Oh, thank God.

Sookie Stackhouse has appeared in the living room, dressed in a shirt and shorts, hair pulled to the side in a braid, grinning at me. Looking normal. Looking like Sookie. My old, not-dead friend.

"Look at you!" she gushes, brushing past Different Eric. "Oh my gosh – I'm gone for one year, and you just . . . grow up!" I let her pull me into a hug. In fact, I hug her back. I probably would have done that regardless of the circumstances, if only to be polite, but . . . well, in _this_ particular circumstance, I'm really, really uncomfortable, and Sookie is the most familiar person I have at hand. And that helps with the uncomfortableness, a little. Kind of bats it down.

"I love your hair," she says when we part, fingering one of its newly-streaked, newly-too-short strands.

"Thank you." I readjust the bags against my hip, for no real reason. "It's good to see you, Sookie."

She glances at Different Eric, who looks back at her with wide eyes. _Trusting_ eyes – I mean completelytrusting, not just with a task or a secret, but with everything you could ever give a person. It's a look that isn't right on him, doesn't even leave him _looking_ like him.

. . . . .

" _. . . and it turns out that even without his memories Eric is inexplicably infatuated with Sookie Stackhouse. I don't know if it's because she found him or what, but he's taken to her like a fucking puppy dog. And I don't trust her nearly enough to be anything like okay with that."_

 _"Then why is he staying there?"_

 _"Where else can he stay while I sort this out, Annika? If Bill or the witches wanna find him, they'll come here first. And I'm not sure he would've left Sookie, anyway. Maybe if she asked him . . . I don't know."_

 _"He'd listen? If she asked?"_

 _"He is_ not _himself, Annika."_

. . . . .

Sookie looks between me and Different Eric. "Have you two . . . Uh . . ."

"He knows who I am," I say. "I mean – I told him."

She nods and grins. It's a tighter grin now, though. "Great. So everyone's all caught up."

I wouldn't put it like that, but I don't correct her. I'm busy noticing how Different Eric has angled his body towards her and not me.

"Um . . ." Sookie sticks her hands in her back pockets and swivels to nod at the living room. "Annika, I got your room ready. Do you wanna –"

"Yes. Please." I step towards my suitcase, which means I step towards Different Eric and his wrongly-angled body, but I don't look at him. I pull out the suitcase's handle as Sookie tells Different Eric she'll be right back in a manner I can only call _reassuring._ You know. The way waitress-fairies are supposed to talk to thousand-year-old Viking vampires.

I follow Sookie out of the foyer, my suitcase rolling along behind me, and . . . I glance back, I can't help it. Different Eric's head is bowed like he's studying his feet. His mouth is pressed tight like they worry him.

He looks young.

 _This is temporary. Temporary, temporary, temporary._

Sookie leads me through a dining room with a long table and chairs that have looping carvings along their backs. There a china cabinet, too, with pale plates and teacups looking back at me through the glass. I've only been in this room – in all the rooms but the living room and kitchen – one time, on the night Eric found out Sookie had disappeared, but it feels more familiar than a once-visited place. Probably because I touched everything. Rubbed my hands on this table, held the backs of these chairs, gripped the handles of that cabinet. Begging all of them, multiple times, to give me something to relay to Eric, some hint concerning Sookie. But they were silent, every one of them. Terribly so.

"Did Pam explain what's goin' on?" Sookie, who's not missing, asks over the growling sound of my suitcase on the wooden floor. "I mean – as best we know?"

"Yeah," I say to the back of her head, maybe speaking too quietly. "Witches."

That's putting it simply.

. . . . .

" _Necromancers?"_

 _"Yes, Annika, necromancers! Witches that play with dead things!"_

 _"I know what necromancers are, Pam, I just didn't think there were any in Shreveport, Louisiana!"_

 _"There aren't! Or, God, maybe there are, maybe these idiots really did Frankenstein a bird, but it doesn't matter. Even if Bill was telling Eric the truth about that, he knew Eric was walking into a trap when he sent him to break the coven up. We have to act under that assumption."_

 _"Why?"_

 _"Because if we don't, and we're wrong, Bill will fuck us over all the fuck over again!"_

. . . . .

"Well," I correct myself, squeezing my suitcase handle. "Witches and Bill Compton."

We've entered a hallway, one that's lit from above by a single bulb behind a cloudy square of glass. Four doors line the walls, two on the left and two on the right, all of them closed except for the second one on the right, at the end of the hall. The walls are spotted with photos in frames, but I ignore them for Sookie, because I don't know exactly how she feels about Bill Compton these days, and that could be a useful thing for me to know.

All Sookie does, though, is halfway-glance over her shoulder, not actually looking at me. I wish she had. Eye contact makes it easier to read people. "I'm sure Bill's doin' what he thinks he has to."

"Like he was last year, when he tried to bury Eric in cement and have Pam _killed_?"

Sookie stops at the end of the hall, turning to face me beneath a painting – no, a stitching – of a sunflower on a white background. Her face is soft, but her arms are crossed. "I'm not sayin' I approve of Bill doin' that – I _definitely_ don't. But . . . yes, he thought it was what he had to do." She drops her eyes. "To protect me."

She's telling the truth about the not-approving-thing, and that's good, but I still say – because it matters, it matters a hell of a lot – " _You_ would have been protected. _I_ would have been . . . whatever the equivalent of _orphaned_ is, for someone like me."

"Like I said. I don't approve of what Bill did. Or what he might be doin' now."

The frame hanging to my right holds an extremely faded black-and-white picture of an old man and a grown-but-not-old man standing in front of the too-round sort of truck people drove decades and decades ago. A big dog with floppy ears sits between them, tongue hanging out. I study this photo for several long, quiet seconds, until Sookie apparently realizes I'm done talking about stupid Bill Compton and what he did and might be doing now and pushes the door beside her open all the way. "Here we are," she says, voice bright, though maybe not quite so much as before. "I think it'll be comfy for ya."

I pull my suitcase through the doorway. This bedroom is little bigger than the one I have at Fangtasia – then again, it might just look that way because of the two windows on the far side of the room. But no, the windows have shutters, already closed, so they can't add much of an illusion of space. The shutters are good to see. The curtains are white and wispy, but the shutters should keep the place dark enough during the day for me to sleep. A full-sized bed covered in a red-and-white-square-patterned quilt sits between the windows. I bring my suitcase to the bed's foot, tugging it onto a rectangular woven rug in the process.

"Haven't used this room since I-don't-know-when," Sookie says. I drop my purse and laptop case onto the bed. My shoulder feels too light now. "Never really had enough family to have a lotta houseguests, growin' up. I thought about puttin' you in my brother Jason's old room upstairs, but it doesn't have its own bathroom." She points at an open door to my left, through which I can see a sink planted on top of a cabinet.

"This will be fine," I say. "Thank you."

"There are clean towels in there. And soap and toilet paper and . . . everything else you could need, I think. But if not, if you need somethin', you just let me know. I'm sure I'll have it around."

There's a dresser across from the bed, a mirror attached and jutting up from it, me currently at its center. My bangs are swept to the side, where they're not supposed to be. I brush them that way sometimes, out of habit . . . I comb my fingers through them now to straighten them, putting their ends just a little in my line of vision, like I like. There's something soothing about it. Like pulling a curtain over me. Although it is a very, very tiny curtain. Generally too tiny.

"Hey, are you hungry?" Sookie asks, almost hopefully, as if I told her about a problem and she's suggesting a solution. "I can make you somethin'."

"No, thank you." As soon as I say this, my stomach snarls at me, but I don't know the food Sookie has in her kitchen. I may not be able to figure out the calories in any of it.

Wait – Have I eaten since breakfast? Eaten and kept it down? No. And denying myself food when I'm hungry, when I've barely _really_ eaten all day, is the sort of thing a girl with an eating disorder would do. "Actually, um – yes," I say. "I would like something. Please."

Sookie pushes off the doorframe. "You got it! Sandwich okay? I can do ham and cheese, or PB and J . . . Or I could whip up somethin' else, if you'd rather, I've got eggs, beans, uh, stuff for a salad, some frozen biscuits – "

"A sandwich, please. PB and J." That sounds strange to me, _PB and J,_ and feels strange on my tongue. I've always just used the full name. "Oh – unless the jelly is strawberry. I can't have strawberry, I'm allergic."

"Really?" Sookie asks, and when I nod, she pushes out her lips and pops up her eyebrows in a _Hm, what do you know?_ way. She uses her face a lot. Humans generally do, at least in comparison to vampires. "How 'bout muscadine?"

"Muscadine?"

"You've never heard of that? Oh, well, it's a . . . berry, I think? Kinda like a grape. Grows wild all over the place 'round here, and it's in season, so lotsa folks are pickin' it for jams and pies . . . a couple of 'em, for wine. Anyway, my friend Terry gave me a few jars of his jam as a welcome-home present just yesterday, and it's about as good as anythin' I've ever tasted."

Something humans also do a lot in comparison to vampires? Overexplain. "I'm sure that would be okay. Thank you." Am I saying _Thank you_ too much? People in Louisiana love that sort of thing, but I still feel like I'm overdoing it.

"Great!" Sookie chirps. "I'll get right on it."

"Um – Sookie?" I say just as she's turning. She turns back, and I lick my lips, playing with the suitcase handle. "Sorry, just . . ." _The idea of having a meal in your kitchen or anywhere else Eric would presumably be sounds remarkably awful, so . . ._ "Could I eat in here? If you don't mind?" The second question slips out like a rabbit from a cage. It makes me sound insecure, and I hate that, so I clear my throat and lift my chin and try to sound more casual now. "I just wanna unpack."

Sookie studies me for a moment. A few moments. Then she nods. "Sure, honey. I'll bring it to you."

"Thank you." There, it happened again – Rabbit from a cage.

When she's gone, I get my phone from my purse, moving the two library books to the bed as I do. I send Pam a text.

 _ **Here. Update?**_

Then I consider my suitcase. I don't want to be in the middle of unpacking when Sookie returns, though. The contents of your suitcase are a personal thing. Even Eric avoided looking in my luggage throughout our time in Europe. _It's the one personal place you have right now,_ he told me early in the trip, in a hotel suite in Stockholm. _I won't intrude, not if I don't have to._

I go into the bathroom, use the toilet, wash my hands. The soap doesn't come out of a dispenser. It's bar soap, a purple oval on a gold-colored dish. A too-strong scent floats off of the bubbles as I wash, something floral. I can't pin it down.

I stare into the sink for a while after I've turned off the water. The air dries my hands.

We were in Stockholm during Christmastime. That's _why_ we were in Stockholm, I think. Eric took me there each December for the last few years I lived in Sweden. We've never celebrated Christmas, obviously, but I've always liked the lights. So Eric always made sure I got to see the ones in Stockholm. Stockholm is beautiful during Christmas, even Eric will say that. To me.

My throat closes up.

"No." I grip the edges of the sink, swallow, breathe, and lift my head to glare at my reflection. _"No."_ My eyes are glassy, so I blink a lot. "This is temporary. This is _temporary_ , and until it's fixed, you can't . . . Jesus." I rest my forehead against the mirror. "You spent most of this year hating him, for God's sake, why are you . . ." I sigh, misting over a patch of mirror. I watch as it shrinks and shrinks, getting a tiny bit bigger every time I breathe out, but shrinking nonetheless.

I think maybe there's a certain special type of hate you can only feel for the people you love.

Then again, I've only ever loved a couple of people. I might not be experienced enough to talk.

I stand straight again. Check myself over. I'm wearing a thin swipe of eyeliner and two coats of mascara, and yet, no smudges. And to think I almost didn't buy waterproof.

"Annika?" It seems Sookie has returned. "I've got your supper. Or – whatever meal it is for you."

I huff out a breath, blink a few more times, and re-enter the bedroom. Sookie is in the corner to my right, setting a tray with a plate and glass on a little desk. She smiles when she sees me. "Brought you some chips, too. Don't know if you like 'em, but lotsa people don't seem to see reason in havin' a sandwich if you're not havin' chips, too."

The potato chips – they're the kind with ridges – are in a pile that probably amounts to one-and-a-half single-serve bags. So, about three hundred and thirty calories. It's harder to figure out the sandwich. It's thick, with peanut-butter-and-jelly dripping from its sides, and peanut butter is really caloric, and also Sookie's peanut butter may very well be the sort with oil and salt and sugar in it, so –

 _You're hungry. Just eat._

The bread is brown, so it's probably wheat. That's something.

I lower into the desk chair, a simple wooden seat. "Thank you," I say, though this time I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to.

"You bet."

Sookie placed a napkin – no, a paper towel – beneath the plate. I spread it over my lap. I tilt the glass towards me to check what's inside, and when I see that it's water, I take a sip, realize I'm thirsty, and drain most of the glass before picking up my sandwich. Sookie settles on the edge of the bed as I nip off a corner. Oh, no, no shortage of peanut butter. Or jelly, for that matter. Or – jam, I suppose, though I'm not clear on the difference. The jam – the _muscadine_ jam – tingles against my tongue, but in a good way, not an allergic-reaction way.

I swallow. "This is good. I mean, I like the jam."

"I know, it's tasty, right? It's the strangest thing – Terry Bellefleur served as a Marine, and he's pretty . . . Well, he brought a lotta stuff back from the war, you know?"

I nod, though I'm not certain I do.

"You just wouldn't expect somebody like him to have such a knack with somethin' like _jam._ But . . . he's a pretty unique fella. Just became a daddy for the first time, with my friend Arlene . . ." Sookie picks at a thread coming out of her shorts. "Pretty sorry I missed that, actually . . . The baby's healthy, though." She smiles again, though it's a tighter smile than before. A strained sort of smile. "That's all the matters. And he's just about as cute as can be, and that's always a nice bonus."

I pop a broken piece of potato chip into my mouth. The salt and grease take me to my bedroom at Fangtasia, with wrappers scattered everywhere, and I decide I'll just have the sandwich. Before I take another bite, though, and because Sookie said _Pretty sorry I missed that_ and therefore sort of invited this question herself, I say, "You weren't really doing work for Bill, were you?"

Her grin flickers. "What do you mean?"

I finish chewing before I answer. It gives me time to decide what it's alright to tell her. "I saw Bill not long after you went missing. He didn't know where you were. He was frightened."

"Well, he had to act like that. It was important nobody know –"

"He wasn't acting. He was frightened, I could sense it."

Sookie's smile is a ghost of itself now. "I thought you couldn't sense things from vampires so well."

"You'd be surprised." I take another bite of my sandwich, take a sip of water. "And you _know_ I can sense things from humans well." _Some things. From some humans. Sometimes._ "You know I can tell when they're lying."

With this, I strike even the barely-there smile off Sookie's face, and with _that_ , something gets tight in my stomach. "Look, I don't care," I say. "I mean – I don't . . . _not_ care, about where you were. But I don't care the way Eric cares, and he already doesn't believe you, and he'll ask me about it – when he's . . . himself again. So, just . . . You should be prepared for him to bring it back up. That's all I'm saying." I tear a piece of crust from the sandwich. I like that Sookie left the crust on. Some people don't. I had a nanny once who could never, for anything in the world, remember to _not_ cut off the crusts. I don't think she was particularly intelligent. Eric fired her quickly. She was the one with the cat, though, wasn't she? I liked the cat. I cried when Eric dismissed the nanny with the cat. He never let another nanny bring a pet after that. "Speaking for myself," I tell Sookie, though I'm looking at my plate, "I get not wanting Eric to know where you've been. Not wanting to . . . You know. Give anything up."

I feel Sookie's eyes on me. I keep mine on my food. After a minute, Sookie says – out of the corner of my eye, I see her lean forward – "Annika, Pam told she wanted you here so someone who really knows Eric would be around him, while he's like this." A half-truth. A _part_ -truth, really. "But she also said Eric was already plannin' on havin' you move in here with me, even before this happened . . ." And Sookie, instead of pointing out what an imposition on her life that move could very well be, asks, "Everything okay between you two?" and fills me with an aching sort of fondness for her.

I have to consider my answer before I give it her. "You've been gone a long time." I rip the remaining half of my sandwich completely in two. A glob of jam-flecked peanut butter falls onto the plate. "A lot has changed."

She doesn't reply right away, and I don't blame her. I didn't give her a lot to work with. But I can't help it. Information is dangerous. And sometimes, giving it up can feel like pulling a bandage off a wound before it's healed. Maybe way before.

"Yeah," Sookie finally says, almost whispering. She rubs her hands over her bare legs. "I'm startin' to get that." She hesitates, but not for long. "Whatever's happened, I know this can't be easy for you. Eric bein' like this. And I know Pam's workin' on gettin' it fixed, but, until she does . . . if you need to talk about it, or talk about . . . anything, I'm here. I know I've been gone a while, but I'm back now. I'd sure like to pick things up where we left off. If that's alright with you."

"As friends?" I murmur. I don't know why, I have no idea why, but I sound little and stupid, so I add, "Or – whatever?" Which makes me sound even more little and stupid.

Not that Sookie would ever say so. Not to me, anyway. "As friends."

I shrug. "Yeah. Of course." I lift my glass to my lips, but it's empty, so I just pretend to drink.

"Great. Then . . . you talk to me anytime you need."

I nod and crush a potato chip. Say nothing.

Just because I _can_ talk to her doesn't mean I should.

"Well." Sookie slaps her hands against her thighs and stands. "I'm gonna try and get a few hours' sleep. Gotta work tomorrow afternoon, and I'm, uh, thinkin' I might go see a friend in Shreveport in the morning."

She's already working again, I assume at the bar where she used to waitress. That seems fast. Then again, she might have been preparing for her return to Bon Temps for weeks, even longer. Just somewhere else.

I really, really wish she hadn't vanished like that.

But, like I told her. I get it.

"Of course . . ." Sookie's watching me. What does she think she sees? "If you're not comfortable bein' here by yourself, I'm sure I could – "

"No, I don't mind," I only sort-of lie. I'm not comfortable being in Sookie's house at all, not under these circumstances, and while being alone will probably make it worse, I doubt it will make it _much_ worse. Even if I thought it would, it's not like I'd admit it. "I'll sleep most of the day, anyway."

"I'll leave my number in the kitchen for you." Sookie gestures at my plate. "You can just put that in the sink when you're through. Tomorrow, if you want. Just be sure to do it as soon as you're up, so it doesn't draw bugs in . . ." She walks to the doorway and looks back when she's there, one hand on the frame. The hall light glows around her. She looks fairy-like, for once. "You help yourself to whatever you want, y'hear? Make yourself at home. If you need anything tonight, I'm just upstairs. The room at the end of the hall."

I nearly say _Thank you._ Instead I just nod. It's a deep nod, though, the sort that kind of says more than _Yes._

Sookie points at the knob. "Door closed?"

"Please."

She pulls it behind her as she steps out of the room. "Sleep tight," she calls softly, and then the door is shut, and I'm alone, listening to Sookie's footsteps fade. Then listening to nothing. I feel like I felt when I was small and my nannies tucked me in before I was tired.

No, I feel like I felt when my nannies tucked me in and Eric was gone.

My phone beeps, and I jump at the sound, then snatch the thing up. It's Pam, a text from Pam:

 _ **Busy. Call you later**_

I clench the phone. _Later._ According to the phone, it's 3:54 _,_ and it won't be dawn until seven or so, so _later_ could be hours away. Sookie's going to be asleep soon, and when she is, it'll be just me and Different Eric awake in this house.

I took a shower this morning, but I take one again. The water takes longer to get hot than I'm used to. The pressure's a little weaker, too. I have my bath stuff from Fangtasia, though, and that's nice. The smells are familiar – the lavender of my body wash, the coconut of my shampoo and conditioner. I breathe in the steam and the scents, and they make something deep down in me hurt. God. I haven't even been away from Fangtasia for two hours.

 _It's not Fangtasia_ _you're missing._

 _Eric's barely been gone two hours, though . . ._

 _What if he never comes back?_

I slam my palm onto the shower wall. "No." But my voice gets lost in the splashing at my feet, so I say it again, louder. _"No!"_ I squeeze my eyes shut. Did I use to argue with myself – _scold_ myself this much? Water runs down my face and into my mouth, but I keep talking anyway, because it helps to hear things out loud, sometimes."It's just a spell. Spells can be broken." Pam's words, verbatim. And I didn't even need her to tell me that. _Of course_ spells can be broken. I know almost nothing about witchcraft, not _real_ witchcraft, but I know that much. It's in every other story involving magic, isn't it? Harry Potter has it, the Grimm fairy tales have it: An evil spell is cast, the hero breaks it, everyone celebrates. Everyone lives happily ever after.

 _Oh, grow up._

It's true, though, the point I'm getting at. Or, returning to. Spells can be broken. This spell _will_ be broken, Pam will make sure of that, she'll do whatever she has to. Find whoever she has to. Kill them . . . Torture them, even.

My knuckles roll into the shower wall. Something swells from my chest and passes through my teeth. One dark word.

 _"Good."_

And then it feels like the steam gets too thick. I rinse myself off and step out of the shower. The air is cold, so I have goosebumps.


	12. Bodies and Feelings

" _Lafayette?"_ I switch my phone from my right hand to my left. "Wait, he's a witch?"

"Apparently." Pam makes the word longer than it should be. "He came crawling to the bar to beg us for mercy. For him, and for his inbred spell-squad."

"When?"

"About an hour ago."

The old-time, has-a-face clock on the bedside table tells me it's currently just after five-thirty a.m. I cross the room, going nowhere, just across the room. It's maybe the thousandth time I've done that tonight. We pace a lot. I mean, I do. "What did you – What did he tell you?"

"Notmuch. Said he didn't _know_ much, aside from that his bullshit little coven did _something_ to Eric. I suspected he was holding out, so I – oh, how would Eric put this to you?"

"Pam."

" I started to . . . _give him extra incentive_."

An image of Lafayette in our basement – _chained_ in our basement, covered with dark smudges and shadows – blows up in my mind, and I jerk my head against the memory. It sinks back to some deeper and darker part of my brain just as Pam is saying, ". . . but right about then, a couple of his witch-bitch bosom-buddies overpowered Ginger – shockingly enough – and muscled their way to me. So I had to improvise."

"Did they try to . . . curse you?"

"They tried to _shoot_ me. Well, they threatened to, anyway. With wooden bullets, or so they claimed."

I run a hand through my still-damp hair. "Jesus, Pam . . ."

"Oh, please, there was never a second I didn't have the upper hand. But, I opened the floor for negotiation."

"And?"

" _And_ they told me their leader could reverse the spell."

I stop moving.

"I gave them twenty-four hours to bring her to me," Pam says, all too casually.

"Then what?"

"Then, presumably, she reverses the spell."

"And if she can't?"

"I find another way."

"What happens if they can't bring her to you at all?"

"What do you think, Annika?"

I can't wring my hands, not with one of them holding my phone, but I clench my free hand into a fist and roll my thumb over my fingers and then unclench my fist and start over. "You give more extra incentive?"

"Like none they've ever seen before." Pam says this in a low way, a way that tells me she's only half-speaking to me. A way that almost makes me pity the witches. Almost. I swallow, turn, walk. The floor creaks in some places, like the floor of the farmhouse on Öland. It's soothing.

"How is he?" Pam asks, sounding normal again. Well, no, not normal, it's more _brisk_ than that, but – normal enough, given the circumstances. "How much have you seen of him?"

"I only saw him for a few minutes, right when I got here. He seemed . . . okay. I mean . . . fine. Confused." _Frightened._

"Could you read him?"

"No."

"Did you try?"

"I told you, I just saw him for a few minutes."

"Well, where is he now?"

"I'm . . . not sure."

"You're not sure?"

"Well, Sookie's in bed, so he's probably in his room. Underground." Specifically, down a ladder behind a cupboard in the living room. Eric showed the room to me once, right after we got back to Shreveport, when the house was still a new purchase and things hadn't gotten _really_ bad between us yet. It's small and simple, the walls bare, the only furniture a bed and two nightstands. It's almost identical to the room he has in Öland. To my memory, anyway. He only showed me that one once, too, when I was very small.

"Annika." Pam says my name like it's too heavy for her tongue. "I sent you there so you could _watch_ him."

"You sent me here for several reasons, or so you said, although I don't think most of them were particularly good –"

"Annika, so help me God –"

" _Pam_ , he's still in the house. I would sense it if he left." Except . . . would I? These days, I can sense when Eric – NormalEric – comes and goes pretty much without fail, but is that still true of _this_ Eric? Different Eric?

Yes, it has to be. He's still him, ultimately, so it has to be.

 _It doesn't, though._

"Pam," I hear myself start, even though I'm not sure I should say this. Not sure I want to. But it's already coming out. "He wasn't . . . comfortable with me." I sigh. It comes back as static. "He didn't _know_ me."

"I toldyou he wouldn't. What did you expect?"

"I expected him to _not know me_ , Pam, I'm not an idiot, but expecting it and – and seeing it happen, those are two different things, and I don't know how to . . ." _Talk to him. Behave around him. Treat him. Think of him._ "I don't know how to do this. Exactly."

"You think I do?"

I say nothing.

Pam can be extremely unhelpful sometimes.

After a moment, she speaks again. "Look, Annika. If I get my way – something I am very good at doing – Eric will be back to normal by this time tomorrow. So, for now, it doesn't matter how comfortable or uncomfortable he is with you. It doesn't matter that he doesn't know you . . . He doesn't know me, either." There's something like a pause here, but it's not quite long enough to be a _full_ pause – Pam's voice sort of skips like a record, then flows again, as if nothing happened. "All you have to do is keep track of him, watch Sookie, and be on alert for Bill and the coven."

"Oh, that's all?"

This time the rush of static comes from Pam's end. "Hey, I've got the harder job here, Princess."

"I offered to help you with your job, like, four hours ago." I finally cross the room again. Creak, creak, creak. "And I would _do_ your job if I could. If I had to."

"Hmph," Pam says. _Laughs_ , sort of.

I clench my teeth and my fist and the phone. "I _would._ If I were a vampire –"

"Oh, calm down, I'm not saying you wouldn't. It's just rich as hell hearing you say that now, given how you've treated Eric for the better part of a year."

"How _I've_ treated Eric?"

"Yes, how you've treated Eric, and spare me the indignance, you know it's fucking true."

"You want to talk about _truth_ , Pam? Then -"

"As a matter of fact, I don't. This is not a discussion that has any relevance whatsoever to our current situation, and I don't care about anything outside of our current situation. You shouldn't, either. Anyway, all of that's between you and Eric. When we get him back, you can talk with him about it all you want. I'm sure he'd welcome it."

"Pam –"

"Quiet. We need to talk about Bill. What to do if he drops by to see you."

"To see me? Why – why would you even tell him where I am?"

"Because I have to. With Eric missing, he'll come see _me_ , and he'll ask about you. If I lie, and he swings by Sookie's for so much as a chat and a good time, he'll catch your scent, and we will be royally fucked. No pun intended."

I don't follow Pam's logic here. I try to figure it out, but after three seconds of silence, she evidently understands that I don't get it and says – not patiently – "If Bill knows you're at Sookie's and knows that I didn't _want_ him to know, he'll assume it's because Eric is there, too."

"Yeah, I get it, Pam," I snap. I don't know if snapping makes it more or less believable.

I know I really didn't need Pam making me feel stupid tonight.

I've crossed my free arm over my chest, hooking it into my other elbow and hanging on tight. My throat is beginning to hurt, _again,_ in that terrible tears-are-coming way that pisses me off so much. Or maybe it's beginning to hurt like that _because_ I'm pissed off so much. At Pam, at Bill Compton . . . at Eric, for letting this happen. For not being here. For lots of things.

Mostly, right now, for not being here.

"What am I supposed to tell him?" I make myself say. "Bill? If he shows up here?"

"The truth. Eric took you out for coffee, told you you were moving into Sookie's, and dropped you off at Fangtasia. That was the last time you saw him. You packed your bags and rode with Ginger to Bon Temps."

"My being here will make Bill suspicious."

"Of course it will."

I roll my eyes to the ceiling. "So _why_ am I _here_ if –"

Pam's voice bursts from the phone. "Goddamn it, Annika, because I – " Then she's quiet.

I swallow a couple of times. Several times. The line hums between Pam and me.

She finally speaks again. Softer. "Annika . . ." Static. "Annie. You know your value. I would not be reckless with you. You are at Sookie's because I believe the benefits of you being at Sookie's – where you can keep tabs on Eric - outweigh the risks. I don't think your being in Bon Temps will spur Bill's suspicions, not all that much. Not so long as you play it right. Which you can."

I keep myself from saying _No pressure._

"Bill knows Eric planned to move you into Sookie's," Pam says. "Eric told him as much the other night, when Bill confronted him about buying Sookie's house."

I didn't know that happened.

"So, _if_ Bill comes to Sookie's house, this is what you do: You make sure Eric is below ground, and knows to _stay_ below ground, before you or Sookie answers the door. Then you politely answer King Bill's questions, exactly like a human in your situation should know how to – like you _do_ know how to."

She's right. I know how to speak to a vampire king. I've done it before.

I take two steps forward. I stop on the second one because the floor creaks in a particularly loud way. I take my weight off, put it on again. I do that for a while.

"I guess this is the part where Eric would say something comforting," Pam says when I'm on the fourth creak.

"Probably." Off, on. "He'd try to be funny about it, a little. Enough to make me smile."

"Well, I've always said he spoils you."

Off, on. I really do love the sound of a creaking floor, more than I realized before now. It takes me back to Öland, to being a child. To Eric being a god no one, no _one_ , could touch.

"Look," Pam finally says, and now, now her voice isn't just _softer,_ it really is simply, strangely soft, and I stop making the floor creak. "I'm _going_ to find a way to get Eric's memory back. It's a matter of _when_ , not _if_. So don't worry about the witches. As for Bill . . . Well, with him, the worst-case scenario is that he strips Eric of his position."

"That's _not_ the worst-case scenario."

"Actually, Miss Know-It-All, it is. And don't get me wrong, it would suck. Our ownership of Fangtasia is tied up with our loyalty to the monarch of Louisiana and, by extension, to the Authority. If Eric loses his position, we'd lose the bar, and the 2010s, in all likelihood, would prove to be a seriously-hormonal bitch of a decade. _But_ , we'd get through it. Wouldn't be the first shit time Eric and I have had to deal with."

"This is the same Bill Compton who tried to kill you and Eric last year, right?"

"That was _before_ he was king. He can't go rogue now, not without risking his own neck. He can't execute Eric without the Authority signing off on it, and they won't. Not for something like this. Something fixable. Eric's too important of a player. He's proven himself too many times over."

I remember to turn my head before I exhale this time, because I don't want Pam to hear how shaky my breathing has become. At least it's the good kind of shaky. The better kind, I mean.

It didn't even occur to me that Eric's life might _not_ be in danger. That's just . . . that's just generally how things have gone, in my experience.

I didn't realize how terrified I was.

"Annika?"

I clear my throat. "Yeah. No, okay."

"This is still serious, you understand me?"

"Of course."

"You'd better."

"I said I do,Pam."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Neither of us says anything for a couple of seconds. Then Pam hangs up.

I close the phone and lower onto the bed. I'm trembling, and my legs don't want to have to hold the rest of me up while they're trembling, while everything's trembling. The next second, though, I make them hold me up anyway, because I have to go into the bathroom and turn on the bath water. There's a vampire in the house, and, it turns out, even when Eric doesn't have his memory I don't want him to hear me crying.

But for the first time in a long time – God, maybe the first time _ever_ – I'm crying from something that doesn't hurt.

When I'm through, I splash some water on my face, dry off, and return to the bedroom. I switch off the bedside lamp and slide beneath the quilt. The sheets are cold and – what's the word? – coarse. No, not coarse, that's too harsh, they're just . . . not as soft as I'm used to. But they're fine. The mattress is comfortable. I let myself sink into it.

The sinking feeling goes too far, though, and I press my face into the pillow and breath out, hard. Then I turn my head, open my eyes, see nothing. The room is totally dark. Just like I like it.

 _Close your eyes._

No, wait – there's a blurry, blue-grey line on the wall in front of me. Light from outside, from the moon, finding a way to slip past the curtains and prove to me, once and for all, that no, this is not my room. This is not where I'm supposed to be.

 _Close your eyes or I will leave._

I close my eyes tight. Pull the quilt over me.

I think of the farm.

. . . . .

I wake up a little after two in the afternoon, which is early for me. The strange bed and strange room greet me together, settling onto me like an extra sheet. An insistent sheet. The mattress is too squishy, the quilt is too thin, the air is too warm . . . and there are other things, things that maybe only I can feel. Vibes. Unfamiliar ones. Then again, they might be the sort of vibes any human – or even non-humans – might feel in a situation like this.

I don't know. I often don't.

I look at the clock, and then I look at a slice of yellow light – the barest slice – that falls onto the floor just beyond the side table. For the most part, the curtain does a good job of lying about what time of day it is, but that slice fights through. I get up and pull back the curtain, keeping my eyes away so the light won't hurt them, and squint at the room as the tough material squeaks across the rail above me. I wait another minute, blinking at the room with its washed-in sunlight, before I turn and look outside. Just with one eye at first.

I don't get to look outside all that often. Certainly not at a forest. The one surrounding Sookie's is still full of green, even in late October, because Louisiana can be like that. I see splotches of orange, though, and red. The tree trunks are thick and close together, but not so much that I can't see a good distance into the forest. I watch two squirrels chase one another up a tree, and I manage to keep track of one all the way up into the limbs. She jumps to another tree, then another. I watch for the other squirrel, but I never see her – or him – again. Eventually, I turn away.

I go to the dresser and open the bottom drawer – it squeaks and scrapes on its way out – and grab a pair of jeans. I've hooked my thumbs in the waistband of my pajama pants when it occurs to me that I don't have to get dressed right now. Not if I don't want to. Lots of people don't get dressed right after they get up. I always do, because Eric has a rule that I can't be in pajamas for more than an hour after I wake, and since I usually shower in the morning, it's easiest to do that and get dressed before I eat breakfast. But I showered last night, and, as far as I know, I have no place to be anytime soon. So, practically speaking, there's no rush to get out of my pajamas. Speaking in all the other ways . . . Well. Eric's not here.

I mean, he's not – here as himself. In quite the right way. Anyway, he's asleep - Different Eric, Under-a-Spell Eric, the Eric who forgot me, he's asleep. He wouldn't care and he's asleep.

I toss the jeans on the bed and leave the room.

I can tell the house is empty. It's quiet, for one thing, but it also sort of opens around me as I walk down the hall. Like it's offering me its space. No - like it's breathing, and figuring out how to do that with me inside of it. I glance at Eric's cabinet as I go through the living room, but I pass it by, ignoring a twinge inside of me as I do. Sometimes things inside of you just twinge, and they don't mean anything. Bodies and feelings are weird that way.

A yellow pad of paper is waiting on the edge of the kitchen table, beneath a plastic pen that has the name of a bank on it. I push the pen off and read the note beneath.

 **Hi Annika! Hope you slept well!**

 **Just got home from Shreveport (it's noon now). Have to go to work. Sorry to leave you alone here, but I'm on thin ice with my boss, so I got to go! I'll be home around 7:00. If you need anything, call my cell or Merlotte's (if it's an emergency). Help yourself to anything you want/need. See you later!**

 **\- Sookie**

 **P.S. Alcide says hi!**

Sookie wrote two phone numbers at the bottom of the note, but I barely look them over. Alcide. _He's_ her friend in Shreveport? I'd forgotten they knew each other, but – my God, of course they do. The first time I met Alcide was the night he brought his van over for Eric to use to get rid of Edgington, and Sookie was there, she even called him her friend then. But that was a year ago. What might Sookie want with Alcide now? Just to catch up?

Sookie must have mentioned me to him. That how he knew to tell her to tell me hi. I might have just come up in conversation, that's possible, and maybe Sookie simply told Alcide what she _should_ tell people, under the right circumstances – that Eric asked her to watch me for a while, that he thought it would be good for me. But . . . what if she told him more? What if she told him about Eric, about what the witches did? If Alcide is special enough to Sookie for her to make a trip to Shreveport just for him, maybe he's special enough for her to tell him everything . . .

Alcide hates Eric. I know, we've bonded over it. But . . . they're different types of hatred, his and mine. His . . . his might scare me. Under the right circumstances.

My hands are wringing, and I let them, I let them, then I stop letting them and breathe. Relax my shoulders, close my eyes . . . Breathe. Every one of my therapists suggested I do that when I feel too much. It works. Not in a miraculous way, but it helps, at least kind of.

 _Think it through._

Would Alcide go out of his way to hurt Eric? No. I don't think so. And if Sookie has told Alcide that Eric's here, that means she doesn't think he would, either, I'm almost sure of that. I mostly trust Sookie. And I trust her even _more_ than I might normally, since she's being paid a lot of money to keep Eric here and keep him secret. Money has power, no matter who you are.

 _There is nothing wrong with your mind, little one. Except perhaps that it works too much._

"No one asked you," I mutter, and then I head to the coffeemaker in the corner.

I know French presses better than standard coffeemakers, but I still used standard coffeemakers occasionally in the European hotels where Eric and I stayed, so I know how they work. This coffeemaker is new and – I think – high-quality, so I can only assume Eric bought it. I change the filter, wash some cold coffee from the pot, and find the coffee itself in the cabinet right above the machine. It's in a can, not a bag, and the brand is _Great Value,_ which is a name I don't recognize and don't trust. When I pop back the lid, I'm greeted not by beans but by powder. Lots and lots of powder. Pre-ground. Of course.

As not-ideal as it is, I scoop some of the stuff into the coffeemaker. _Beggars can't be choosers._ Ginger's fond of saying that.

When water is trickling through the machine and steam is rising from its edges, I start looking for breakfast. I find some cereal and granola bars in the cupboards, both of which promise they're low-fat, and both of which have nearly twenty grams of sugar per serving. I decline both options. In the fridge, I find some eggs, and I'm debating if I want to scramble them when I see a box of Yoplait yogurt on the bottom shelf. I reach into it, pull out a carton, and read the label. _Blueberries & Cream_, it says. There's a picture of blueberries splashing into cream to prove it. I flip the thing over and read the ingredients, because sometimes different fruits get mixed into things like this, but strawberries aren't mentioned. The yogurt has ten grams of sugar, which is still a lot, but it's better than the cereal and the granola bars. And it only has one hundred twenty calories. So, I find a spoon in a drawer, pull back the shiny seal on the yogurt, and take a bite. It's thick and sweet and I like it.

I walk into the living room as I eat. Eric's really left most things alone, I think. I mean, he had the place cleaned and the walls painted, and there's a big new flat screen TV as well, but, for the most part, this is the living room I remember. Same antique furniture, same bookshelf full of romance novels. Same family photos in polished old frames. If Sookie came back – _when_ Sookie came back, as Eric was always sure to say, in the rare times he would speak of her directly – he wanted everything she cared about to be waiting for her.

I kind of loved him for that.

He was being more selfish than I let myself see, of course. Eric wanted power over Sookie. This house, it's a chess piece. Eric's very good at chess.

A record player sits in the far left of the room, in the corner opposite of Eric's wardrobe. I noticed it the night Eric found out Sookie was missing, but I'd forgotten about it. Until now. It's bigger than mine, because it's not meant to be moved, the way mine is, and it looks used and old – like, it's probably actually from when records were the modern way to listen to music.

Jack has a record player like this in his office.

The player, it sits on a little table, and the table has a shelf beneath it where records are stacked. I squat down and finger through them. Country music, mostly, and some older rock and pop. I recognize big names – Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Elvis Presley, all of whom Jack praised, all of whom I've listened to. I don't pull out a record, though, until I find one that says _The Charlie Daniels Band: Live in Texas._ I don't pull this album out because I know the band's name, or because I recognize the man with a giant hat and a white beard almost as large (I _don't_ recognize him, though I presume he's Charlie Daniels). I pull it out because the man is playing a violin. Or – a fiddle, people in country music usually call it a fiddle. But I prefer to say _violin_.

I like the violin.

I put the record back, though. Sookie said to make myself at home, but . . . Playing music in someone else's home feels like really, _really_ making yourself at home to me. And maybe I just don't want to do that yet.

 _But you live here now. Eric wanted you to live here, remember? He wanted that._

I return to the kitchen, toss out my yogurt container, wash the spoon, place it in the dish rack beside a bowl and a mug. After a moment, I put the bowl up – it's not a big kitchen, I don't have to look far for its place - and pour the mug full of coffee. Which tastes like pre-ground coffee. I press my lips together after that first sip, but I take another sip a second later. Beggars, and all that.

I sort of just end up on the front porch, like I sort of just ended up in the living room before. I stand on the edge of the porch, the wood beneath my bare feet warm in a very soothing way, my mug and hands resting on the railing. The air is just cold enough that you might want a jacket, but not so cold that I need to go get one. I like the cold. Louisiana doesn't have enough of it, really.

There are no clouds today, and since it _is_ day, there are no stars. The sky looks empty, but somehow also not. Even though it's blue, just blue and blue and blue, it doesn't look empty. Skies and oceans are like that. My hand stretches out on its own. I feel and watch the sunlight play on my fingers as I curl them in and out, rotate my palm. I'm a pale person by nature, made paler by years of being up at night and sleeping during the day, and the sun makes my skin glow. And it feels good. Warm, in a specific way.

 _I like the sun more than I wish I did,_ I told Eric once. In France, actually. Eric likes France, so much so that he has a flat in Paris, and we stayed there for nearly six weeks. Well, I did, he was gone for about two of those, but . . . Well, anyway, right before things went bad in France, things were good between us, really good, and because Kristofer Hagen was with us, Eric was even letting me go out occasionally in the afternoons, with Kris chaperoning me. I came back one night just after Eric had risen, and he sat with me on the balcony while I drank some coffee, and I told him that thing, that I like the sun, and then I immediately regretted it. But Eric gave me no reason to. He told me that was perfectly normal, and that it would change after I'd turned. He told me he never missed the sun anymore. That most vampires don't.

. . . . .

" _Then why did you –"_

 _". . . Why did I what?"_

 _"Nothing."_

 _"No, ask your question."_

 _". . . Why did you . . . offer Sookie to Edgington?"_

 _"I_ didn't _offer Sookie to Edgington."_

 _"I know, it was a trap, I just meant –"_

 _"I know what you meant . . . Okay. I may be . . . exaggerating, when I say most vampires_ never _miss the sun. But it's a minor sort of missing. Not having the sun is an extremely small price to pay for the abilities we have. That_ you _will one day have."_

 _"So you miss it, but not much?"_

 _"Hardly at all."_

. . . . .

"Hardly at all," I mutter to my glowing hand.

And, as if I've cast a spell – an ironic thing to think of, I guess – a truck pulls into the driveway, apparently just above my palm, which I drop immediately.

It's a blue truck, the sort with only two seats in the front. Dust colors the truck's lower half, getting especially thick right around the tires. I step back from the rail as the thing comes closer, gravel popping beneath it. I only take that one step, though. I'm in plain sight, the driver will have seen me, so if I turn and go inside, it will be clear that I'm . . . well, I don't want to say _fleeing,_ that sounds too dramatic, but . . . it wouldn't seem like I like to seem. Strong and capable.

The truck stops in the yard. I press my coffee mug against my chest as the driver's side door pops open. A pair of too-long legs swings out, followed by a too-long torso and a head of dark, too-long hair – well, the hair is only just a _little_ too long, and it probably wouldn't be, were it styled, the way Eric usually styles his. The man's hair – no, the _boy's_ hair, he's tall, but he's young - falls in his eyes the first second I see him, and he rakes it back just to have strands fall over his forehead again.

He's looking at me. Naturally. Like I said, he would've seen me as he drove up.

The boy walks up the side of the truck, hands slipping into his pockets. He's wearing a long-sleeved plaid shirt with the buttons open and a white shirt beneath. The plaid shirt flies back a little as he walks, but it falls still when he stops. "Hey."

I tilt my chin up, gazing down at him, wishing very much that I had gotten dressed this morning after all. Or at least brushed my hair. As it is, I'm standing here in black pajama pants and a loose white tank top, my hair doing whatever it likes, and now I have to try to act like this is the exact sort of outfit I would want to meet anybody in at any time. "Hello," I remember to say after a little too much time has passed. "Can I help you?"

"Uh . . . No, I'm just – I'm just here to mow the lawn." He squints at me. His mouth twitches into a grin, but it only lives for a moment, and I watch as his mouth relaxes into a half-open something-like-a-smile. "I don't . . . know you."

I readjust the mug in my hands and try to find a good response to this, but before I can he says, "Sorry. That, uh . . . That probably sounded rude. I just – I just don't see a lotta people I don't know. 'Round here, I mean. In Bon Temps. Do you – I mean, how do you know Sookie?"

"How do _you_ know Sookie?" I say. "Does she know you're here? To . . . mow?"

"Uh, no, no, it's just something I like to do. Go from house to house, mowing random lawns, vigilante-style. Like Batman, but with lawn equipment."

I stare at him.

He pushes himself up and down on his tiptoes. "That was a joke."

"Yeah, I got it."

He nods once, slowly. "Cool. Yeah. Um – yes, Sookie knows I'm here. She works with my uncle and my aunt at Merlotte's. Well, Terry and Arlene, they aren't technically my uncle and my aunt, he's my cousin and she's married to him, but I – I call them my uncle and my aunt, because that's just . . . more of the role they play in my life, I guess."

I stare at him some more.

He pops his lips, then laughs a little, in a breathy, barely-makes-a-sound way. He looks at his feet as he does this, and more hair falls into his face, and he combs it back again before looking back up, at me, and I notice that his eyes are a deep, dark blue, and as I notice this something jumps from him to me in a way that makes my whole body jerk, just a tiny bit, and causes my breath to catch in my throat. And I don't know what it is, what I'm sensing, or what it means. And I never like that.

The boy says, "That was more information than you asked for, I'm sorry, I'm rambling, I . . . do that. Actually, I don't, really, but, um . . . Anyway – yeah, Sookie works at Merlotte's with my uncle and aunt –"

"Who are really your cousin and his wife," I say without a thought.

He smiles, and my body jerks again, in that same tiny way. ". . . who are really my cousin and his wife. And I was at Merlotte's yesterday – I'm there a lot - and I saw Sookie again – which was great, of course, I've known her for years, my mom was friends with her grandma – and she, uh, asked me to come by sometime and mow for her, 'cause I used to do that a lot, before she . . . went away." He swallows. Keeps looking at me. I keep my breath steady, even though my lungs aren't sure it should be that way . . . _What is this?_

The boy's mouth does that twitch-into-a-grin thing again. Fades into the half-smile again. "I'm Trevor, by the way. Bellefleur. Trevor Bellefleur . . . is my full name."

 _Bellefleur._ That's familiar, but I don't know why. I raise my chin again, because I accidentally lowered it while he was talking, though I think I've raised it too much now, so I lower it back down a little. "I'm Annika. Northman. Annie. Most hum – most people just call me Annie."

"Annika," he says, a little too quietly.

I reach forward to grip the railing. Once I'm doing that, it feels awkward, but I think it would be more awkward if I took my hand back, so I leave it. "My guardian owns Sookie's house. I'm staying with her for a while."

"Your guardian? I thought Jason sold the place to a –" He cuts himself off. I don't move, not until I feel blood beating through my neck, then I force myself to relax my shoulder muscles. "Huh," he eventually says.

"Sorry?"

Trevor shakes his head. "Nothin'." He says this easily, brightly. "So are you just . . . in Bon Temps to visit, or . . . ?"

"I've moved in here," I say, maybe too quickly. But it's the truth, the truth that Pam said I should tell.

"Like, permanently?"

"Something like that. Yes. I got here last night." _Was that okay to say?_ "Although it's been planned for a while." _Stop talking now._

"Planned?"

"Yes." I clear my throat. "Did you need anything? To mow?"

"Uh, no, no." Trevor nods across the lawn, where there's an old shed that used to look even older, before Eric had it painted white to match the trim of the house. "Sookie said the mower's still in the shed, so I can just . . . help myself. If that's good with you. I mean . . . " He shrugs with one shoulder, throws his head back to his truck. "I could . . . come back some other time, if you're not . . ."

"No, it's fine."

He grins now. It's a fuller grin than before. More intentional. Not fake, I think, but . . . I think he's conscious of it, and I'm not sure he's conscious of the twitch-grin thing. "Great."

It's quiet for a moment. Except for the birds. I didn't realize how many birds were singing today, but they're everywhere.

"Okay, then," I say, and turn away. I mean to say something else, I do, but my brain offers nothing more. That's not like my brain, and I don't like it, but that's how it is, so I get to the door and then get inside the house, all without my brain being anything but _empty_ , and then I'm leaning back against the closed door, just me and my mug and the quiet, breathing house, and I let out a quick little breath of my own.

Then I turn and stand on tiptoe to watch Trevor Bellefleur through the door's little window. I have to look through thin curtains – I don't want to risk opening them and having him notice me – but I can see him well enough. He walks across the lawn and goes into the shed for a moment before reappearing, pushing a lawnmower I'm surprised Eric never replaced, as it looks quite old to me. Trevor walks back to his truck, shrugging out of the plaid button-up shirt as he does. He tosses it through the truck's open passenger window. His white undershirt has no sleeves – I want to call it a tank top, but I think it's called something different for men. His arms look even longer now than they did before. I'm sure he can't be more than a few years older than me, but I think he must be tall for his age – he's not _Eric_ tall, but I think he's taller than most people, most _adults_ , at least by a little. And I don't think his muscles were ready for him to be so tall when he grew, because his arms look too skinny for his body, like someone stretched them out. They do have some muscle, though. They're thin, but they look hard, too. _Defined_ , you might say. I bet he's strong.

He runs a hand through his hair yet again, and I lower from the window, reface the stairs, and close my eyes.

 _You sensed something from him. What?_

It might not be anything of consequence. I sense things from people all the time.

This was different, though. In some way. And it's lingering, what I sensed. The thing that made me jerk. It's still here, in my gut, stirring.

Warm. In a specific way.

I open my eyes.

A lot has happened in the past eighteen hours. And I'm prone to overthinking, that's just a fact.

I hear a low sort of roar begin outside. The lawnmower, I assume. I almost look out the window again, but I catch myself. "You have things to do," I say, even though I don't, really. Well, assignments. I have those to do. I could do those. I should.

But first, clothing. And a damn hairbrush.


End file.
